A Kumo Ninja
by GUIDix
Summary: Adopted from feltyminotaur61
1. Chapter 1

**Ok so i've been having a lot of family problems for the last few months so i couldn't update. That being said,from now on i will try to update as much as i can. That means this story that i had adopted from** **feltyminotaur61 a few months back and my other two Fairy Tale stories. I want to make it clear that i have every intention of finishing all three story war written up until the first half of chapter 8 so from then onwards it'll be my writing any more delay enjoy the story!**

Disclaimer: I do not own the Naruto franchise nor do I make any money off of my work. This is done entirely for fun.

I apologize if there are any spelling errors, grammatical errors, inconsistent plot points or words where they don't belong. I don't have any beta reader so I just have to do my best. If anyone wants to beta read for me, send me a private message. It may take a while for me to respond but I'll get back to you.

This story is almost completely non-cannon. It will have some brushes with some cannon arc and you might hear of some cannon events but expect things to go differently. Characters will also be different from how they act in cannon. You have been warned.

I want to give credit to the story that inspired me to write this story.

N of Kumo by NinjaRiderWriter

It's a great story and if you hadn't read it already you should.

I want to warn everyone that updates will be sporadic. I will try to update at least twice a month if not every week but due to events in my life I may not be able to keep any schedule. Sorry.

I also want to warn everyone that while I have definite events that I want to happen, I have no clear ending in mind. I will do my best to finish this but I may not be able to. That being said, I can definitely see the this lasting for quite some time with the events I have in mind.

Naruto might get super powerful but I will try to keep him from becoming a Gary-su.

Reviews are welcome, they help me become a better writer. That being said this is my first attempt at fanfiction so bear with me.

Naruto was hungry. This was unfortunately not a rare state of being for him. Naruto was usually hungry not because he had a fast metabolism or because he was on a diet, but because it was almost impossible for him to get food in the first place.

Stores and restaurants refused to serve him so he had to find food for himself. This caused another problem in that every time he found food someplace, he could never find food there again.

He had thought that it was just bad luck the first few times it had happened but after a month he had known that someone was doing it deliberately. He did not known who was making sure to clean out anyplace he had found food in but they were entirely to successful. No matter how sneaky he tried to be, if he found food he would never find it there again.

What Naruto did not know was that he was completely correct in his guess. Due to the unusual circumstances around his birth he was hated by large portions of the village. Due to the third Hokage's tenuous protection no one could really harm Naruto.

Instead a group of shinobi followed Naruto around whenever they were off duty and reported places where Naruto found food to civilians who would then clear them out.

More unfortunately for Naruto, they were very successful. Naruto had not eaten in three days, longer than he had ever gone without food before. He had considered just letting himself die but the pain in his stomach had overcome his fledgling suicidal thoughts and had driven him to look for food once more.

Distracted by the hunger he felt, he did not notice when he stumbled out from the alley he had been looking in into the main streets of his village. Naruto did however notice when he walked into someone on the street because he bounced off and landed on the ground.

Wincing Naruto looked up at the woman he had just bumped into and flinched when he noticed the woman was wearing a hitai-ate. A hitai-ate meant the woman was a kunoichi and kunoichi's could give the most painful beatings when provoked.

What Naruto did not see however was that the hitai-ate did not have a leaf emblem to represent Konohagakure. Instead it had a cloud emblem to represent Kumogakure.

The woman Naruto had run into was in fact a kunoichi from Kumogakure, sent as part of an envoy to try to make a more lasting peace between the two villages. The woman was annoyed that someone had run into her and turned to yell at whoever had hit her. When she finished turning however she froze.

Sitting there on the street was a young boy who looked barely old enough to walk. He wore what looked like a bunch of rags tied together in a cruel parody of a kimono. He was covered in bruises and garbage only some of which looked new.

While the life of a shinobi was hard, and the kunoichi had seen and done many things that made the things done to the child seem like a blessing, something about hurt children always tugged on her heart.

The kunoichi crouched down so she was on the same level as the child. She reached out to him but paused as he flinched. After a moment she continued to reach out. She gently turned his face towards hers and frowned at the fear she saw on his face.

"Hey now, there is no need to be afraid. It was just an accident."

Naruto froze in shock. First this woman had not hit him like everyone else would have. Then she had looked at him with an expression of concern, quite unlike the barely concealed fear, anger and disgust he was used to. He had absolutely no idea how to deal with this situation.

"Are you alright? You didn't hurt yourself running into me did you?"

The question caught him off guard. No one ever bothered to ask if he was alright. Unsure what to do with the strange situation, and already weakened from hunger, Naruto did the only thing he still could, he fainted.

The woman watched the expressions flicker across the young boy's face before he fainted and frowned at what she had seen. She glanced around the street to see if anyone would help but noticed that everyone was either ignoring the boy or looked like they wanted to hurt him. Her frown deepening she decided that she couldn't leave the boy there alone.

After another moment of thought she picked up the boy. He was unnaturally light to her even though she had to admit that she had never held a boy of his age before. After another glance at the people around her she decided to bring the boy to the hotel she was staying at. She hoped the team leader and the team medic would know what to do.

_ Scene Break _

Mabui, the kunoichi who had picked up Naruto earlier glanced up as she heard a door open. C, the team medic, looked over at her.

"Well, how is he?"

C frowned as he thought about what he had found.

"Frankly, I'm amazed he is still alive."

Mabui's eyes widened in shock.

"Really, he didn't look that bad to me. Roughed up a lot but not almost dead.

C nodded in agreement.

"You're right. He is only roughed up a lot. On anyone else though he would be near death. The most pressing problem was starvation. It looks like he hadn't eaten in at least two days and only sporadically over the past few months. What he has managed to eat seems to have been garbage and I'm amazed that he doesn't have any diseases considering how he had been living. On top of all that he is malnourished, has three cracked ribs, a sprained ankle, bruising over large parts of his body, and some large if shallow cuts that I'm amazed aren't infected."

Mabui blinked at that. That really did sound very serious, much more serious than what she had thought when she had brought him in.

"Do you know why he is in such good condition?" asked B from behind her. Mabui almost jumped at being sneaked up on but managed to hide her reaction.

C frowned but replied. "Not really. I can say it definitely wasn't medicine or medical chakra. If I had to guess I'd say it's some kind of Kekkei Genkai.

B perked up at that. "Really? A has been telling me to look for Kekkei Genkai that we can add to our village. If he really does have one and he really is treated as poorly as it seems he is we may be able to get him to defect."

Mabui perked up at that. She had felt sorry for him and had been racking her brains to see if there had been any way she could have helped him. This offer was far more than she had been expecting, although a Kekkei Genkai was also more than she had been expecting.

C was also pleased with this turn of events, as a healer he hated seeing anyone in pain, especially children, but also decided to be a voice of reason.

"Well I will have to do more tests to determine if it really is a Kekkei Genkai and not just luck. We also have to talk to him before we can say if he'll defect or not."

B nodded his head at C's words. "I understand. When do you think he'll wake up?"

C frowned in thought for a moment. "Well, I'm not sure how long he would normally rest but sleep isn't really helping him so you can wake him up anytime you want. Just make sure he eats before you question him, I've left some beef broth in there for him."

B nodded and motioned for Mabui to follow him into the bedroom where the boy rested. B turned to Mabui and motioned for her to move to the child's side.

"I'll let you be the one to talk to him because you're the one he remembers." B paused for a moment before continuing. "I know you are looking for a way to help the kid and I even agree with your sentiment so I'll make this offer, if you can get him willing to defect, I'll let him come along Kekkei Genkai or not."

Mabui looked shocked for a moment and B laughed gently. "Am I really such a demon that you look shocked when I do something nice?"

Mabui began to stammer a denial and apology but B waved her away. "I'm just joking. It's no problem. Besides, A did tell me to try to get some people to defect, this just makes it easier for me to do."

Mabui nodded her head and seeing that B was finished reached down to try to wake the child.

Naruto woke in a daze. He was warm and laying on something soft, feelings he had almost forgotten. He shifted slightly, reveling in the softness and warmth he was feeling before he smelled something that was better that softness and warmth. He went to sit up but was stopped by a gentle hand on his chest.

His eyes quickly followed the hand upwards to see the kunoichi he had run into earlier smiling at him. Her most distinguishing feature was long white hair that was held away from her face with the Haiti-ate he had seen before. In her right hand was a bowl of steaming soup which seemed to be giving off the smell he had noticed before.

Sitting behind the woman, near the window of the room he was in, was a large scarred man with dark skin. He was dressed in white, unlike any shinobi he had seen before. Naruto's eyes quickly tracked back to the soup the woman held, dismissing the man as unimportant for now. The woman noticed his gaze and quickly brought the soup down so he could reach it.

"Slowly. You haven't eaten in a while and if you eat too quickly you'll get sick. Don't worry, you will get all you can eat."

Naruto glanced at the woman warily but nodded. He had learned never to turn down free food, even if it was poisoned it wouldn't effect him. Reaching out slowly he took a spoonful of the soup and began to eat. The woman watched him for a moment, checking to see if he was following her instructions before nodding. After a few moments of him eating she began to speak.

"My name is Mabui and I'm a kunoichi of Kumogakure, behind me is B also from Kumogakure. What's your name?"

Naruto froze for a moment, spoon halfway to his mouth. They didn't know who he was. If he told them would they stop being so nice? Then he remembered that they said they were from Kumogakure. They might be different and if he didn't tell them they would probably stop being nice.

After a moment Naruto moved again to take his next sip. After another moment of thinking he decided to reply.

"Naruto Uzumaki. Citizen of Konohagakure I guess, but I want to be a shinobi some day."

Mabui did not react to his name at all. She just smiled at him and began speaking to him again.

"That's good, between you and me, being a shinobi can be really awesome." Left unsaid were all the many times being a shinobi was not awesome, that could come later when it wouldn't do quite so much damage to a child's dreams. "How are you feeling?"

Naruto paused again at this, not because he was afraid to answer but because he was shocked at what his answer was.

"Good. Really good. Better than I have felt in a long time."

Mabui hid her concern at that statement with the ease of long practice.

"Oh? And just how long is that? How old are you?"

Naruto flushed with a mixture of embarrassment and shame but answered any way, after all, these people were nice to him, answering their questions was the least he could do.

"As long as I can remember really, and I'm six years old. My birthday was last month."

Mabui suppressed a frown again. She had thought he was maybe three when she had met him. Being six made the malnutrition and starvation all the more evident.

She saw that he was beginning to get uncomfortable so she switched the topic to something other than him. After a few hours and two more bowls of broth Mabui decided to get a few of the more important questions answered.

"So Naruto, why don't you let us know where your parents are. I'm sure they are getting worried about you and I can send someone to let them know that you're alright."

Naruto looked sad for a moment which answered her question but he confirmed it a moment later.

"Both my parents are dead. I'm an orphan."

Seeing that Naruto was finished speaking she decided to gently push a little. "What about your guardians or the people at the orphanage. You're really young to be on your own for very long."

Naruto looked even more sad but this time his expression was tinged with anger and resentment.

"I have no guardians and the orphanage kicked me out last year. They said they needed the room for kids who had a chance of being adopted." His voice dropped to a whisper that was still easily heard by the shinobi in the room. "Even if they still had two almost empty dormitories and they hadn't gotten any kids in a year."

Behind Mabui, B clenched his hands in anger causing the chair back his hands rested on to grown. Mabui winced at the news despite her best efforts to hold it in. Naruto saw the Kumo shinobi react to his words and cringed in fear. Mabui seeing this motioned for B to calm down.

"I'm sorry Naruto, I didn't mean to frighten you. I'm just angry that anyone could be so cruel to a child. Children are meant to be protected and nurtured whenever possible."

Naruto calmed down at her explanation but continued to look sad. Mabui tried desperately to figure out a way to continue the the conversation naturally so that Naruto didn't figure out that they were looking for information. Luckily for Mabui, C picked that moment to enter the room.

C was an experienced shinobi and could easily read the mood of the room. He realized that the conversation had stalled and decided to start from a new angle.

"Hello young man, my name is C. I am the medic of this team and as you might have guessed I'm the one who has been treating you. Now I've done what I can for now but there are some questions I need answered to make sure that I am not missing anything. Why don't we start with your name?"

Naruto glanced up at the man who claimed to have helped him heal. He was a tall man who appeared to be in his late twenties. He wore baggy, black pants, red and white shin-guards and a sleeveless black shirt. Over his shirt was a white vest that covered his waist and right shoulder. A Kumo Haiti-ate held his blond hair away from his face and finished his outfit.

After another moment Naruto decided that this new man was trustworthy and decided to answer his question.

"I'm Naruto Uzumaki."

C nodded at this information before beginning his questions. "From what I can see the most severe problem you had was starvation. Can you tell me how long it has been since you last had a meal before this one? And what it was you ate too please."

Naruto frowned for a moment but answered anyway.

"Before this soup I hadn't eaten in three days. That's why I bumped into you miss, I was really hungry and I wasn't looking where I was going." Naruto said as an aside to Mabui before finishing answering C's question. "What I ate was some stale bread from trash behind the baker's place. I was lucky, It was only two days old when I found it."

C hid his reaction to that and continued with his questions. "Have you been eating out of the garbage for long? When was the last time you had a meal not out of the garbage? When was the last time where you go three meals a day?"

"I have eaten out of the garbage ever since the orphanage kicked me out a year ago. No stores or restaurants will let me buy anything. Before that I ate what the orphanage gave me but they never gave me three meals, just a bowl of porridge in the morning and sometimes a bowl of rice at night."

C could not believe what he was hearing. Anyone else eating like that would be dead from starvation or diseases he had picked up from the garbage. He was tempted to think that the kid was lying to get free food but his years as a medic meant that he could almost always tell when someone lied. Unless this kid had jonin level training on hiding secrets he was telling the truth.

"I also noticed that you had some injuries, some old and some new, care to tell me how you got them and when?"

Naruto frowned for a moment as he tried to figure out which injuries might be considered old.

"I get all my injuries from people beating me up. They know not to go really far but they can usually get away with bruises. If you could still see the bruises I guess the old injuries were from this morning. The new injuries were from some drunk guys in the alley I was in just before I bumped into you."

"What do you mean if we could still see them?"

"I mean that I heal really fast. Bruises are usually gone in a few hours. If you could still see them then that meant it was the beating from this morning and not the one from the previous night."

"Do you get a lot of beatings? Are they usually so brutal?"

"I guess, I usually get a beating three to five times a day. Most people know to stick to bruises and light cuts, anything more or any weapons used makes the animal masked people show up."

C sighed at this information before nodding and doing a medical diagnostic jutsu. After a moment he released the jutsu and addressed Naruto again.

"I don't see anything wrong with you other than the malnutrition and hunger. For now I think you can have some more solid food. B, why don't you help me prepare some food for Naruto."

B nodded and got up. His posture was a little stiff, showing just how angry he was at the information he had heard. B nodded his head and followed C out of the room.

"Well?" B grunted as soon as the door closed. "Is it a kekkei genkai or something else?"

C took a moment to answer, mentally checking his conclusion again to make sure it was sound.

"I'm ninety percent certain he does have a kekkei genkai. If he really is from the Uzumaki clan we even know what kekkei genkai it is."

"Really? What kekkei genkai did the Uzumaki clan have?

"From what I remember of the records we have, the Uzumaki clan kekkei genkai included advanced healing and longer than normal lifespan. Uzumaki shinobi were strong opponents and I'm sure the Raikage would be pleased to add such a strong kekkei genkai to the village.

B finally smiled for the first time since he had heard just what the child in the next room had endured.

"Alright! Perfect. This means we can take him with very few problems. The people of Kona obviously don't want him and the people of Kumo will be glad to have him."

"Don't get ahead of yourself. You still need Naruto's cooperation. Despite our best efforts, if he doesn't want to cooperate with us, helping him will be difficult."

B waved of C's concern. "No problem. I'll just let Mabui know that she can keep him and he'll be coming with us in no time."

C shook his head at B's lack of concern but also had to agree that Mabui was very persuasive when she wanted to be. B picked up the bowl rice and salmon that C had prepared for Naruto and reentered the room.

Mabui glanced up as she heard the door open. She saw B entering and hoped that they would be able to help Naruto. Seeing Mabui's look of concern, B smiled at her and nodded his head.

Mabui smiled in return and returned her attention to Naruto. She knew that the smile meant everything was set up on their end, they just needed to convince Naruto to come with them when they left.

B crossed the room and handed the bowl in his hands to Naruto. Naruto's eyes widened at seeing the feast he had been given, and after a quick thank you, began digging in. Mabui smiled at Naruto's enthusiasm before beginning her appeal.

"So Naruto, how do you like Konohagakure?"

Naruto stopped eating for a moment and looked at Mabui as if she was crazy.

"This place? I hate it. Everyone hates me and I have no friends."

"So why don't you leave?"

Naruto continued to look at Mabui as if she was crazy. Why else would she be asking questions with such obvious answers. "Because outside of the village is even more dangerous. Here at least I don't have to deal with bandits."

Mabui nodded in thought for a moment before continuing. "If you could leave Konohagakure but not have to worry about bandits, to a place where you could make friends, a place where you always got enough to eat, a place where you could learn to protect yourself from any harm, would you?"

Naruto started nodding madly before she even finished the question. What kind of question was that, of course he would go to a place where he wasn't hungry or hurt all the time. Just in case she didn't get his message he answered out loud.

"Of course I would go!"

"Well then, It's lucky that I know just such a place."

Naruto's eyes widened and try as he might, he couldn't crush the flicker of hope that appeared in his chest.

"Really?" He whispered, scared to raise his voice in case the noise would cause the offer to disappear. "Where?"

Mabui smiled down at him before replying. "Kumogakure of course. If you came to Kumo there would be nobody who would harm you, you would always get enough to eat, you would even be able to make friends."

Naruto's chest felt tight, the small glimmer of hope began to swell making his chest feel like it was going to burst.

"At Kumo you could even learn to be a shinobi, to fulfill that dream of yours."

Naruto could barely contain himself. He wanted to believe that his life could get better. He wanted to crush the desperate hope he had to protect himself from being let down.

"Really?"

"Really, Really." Mabui replied with a kind smile.

It was too much. The feeling in his chest seemed to burst. Tears poured down his face and he wasn't quite sure why they were there. He wanted to accept the offer with his entire body but he couldn't seem to stop crying to answer.

A moment later he was engulfed in another sensation that he knew was unfamiliar with. It was warm and snug against his whole body. He opened his eyes, not remembering when they had closed, to see that Mabui was hugging him. After a moment of shock he lunged forward and began to hug her to, just like all the children he saw hugged their parents.

As she continued hugging him he finally worked up enough control to begin nodding. "I'd like that a lot." he whispered, so softly she might have missed it without shinobi training.

"Well then, that's what we will do."

The two stayed there hugging each other tightly. B just smiled and left the room to give the two some privacy. Seeing C look up he nodded his head in confirmation. C smiled and sat back down to his work.

After half an hour Naruto fell asleep, exhausted from the emotions, crying, warmth and full stomach. Mabui left the room to talk about the details of bringing Naruto to Kumo with B and C.

"How's he doing?"

"Alright. He's asleep now. I guess the day just caught up to him. We should be quick though, I want to be in the room with him when he wakes up, so he doesn't freak out."

B smirked at her defensive words but decided to let her slide with no teasing.

"What worries me most is the 'animal masked people'. No doubt those are ANBU. If they decide to intervene there could be problems."

The three were silent for a moment thinking about the problem before C slowly began to think out loud.

"I don't think that will be an issue. He said they only showed up when the beatings got too bad, they didn't stop any of the treatment or help him when he was eating garbage. That means they have orders to protect him but don't actually like him or want to do there job."

Mabui picked up his line of thought when he trailed off.

"That makes sense. No ANBU tried to stop me from taking him into the hotel, it's like they don't care what happens to him. I mean, a foreign shinobi taking a kid into a hotel is cause for concern if anyone cared."

C had used the time Mabui was speaking to finish ordering his thoughts and finished with his conclusion.

"That must mean that the ANBU are hoping we get rid of him in some way. They won't interfere unless they are ordered to and they'll probably help us by not informing superiors or lying."

B spoke up with another worry.

"What if their superiors catch them anyway? I want to help the kid but I don't want to start a war if I can help it."

Mabui suddenly smiled as a plan came together in her mind.

"And we won't. We just have to be sneaky about how we do this. But that won't be a problem, shinobi are supposed to be sneaky, right?"

_ Scene Break _

Naruto woke with a start. For a moment he thought that everything that had happened to him was a dream and it almost broke his heart. Then he began to register what he was feeling warm and full, sensations that he had not felt in a long time. After another moment he opened his eyes.

Looking down at him was that woman from before, Mabui. She smiled when she saw he was awake and began to speak softly to him.

"Hey sleepyhead, how do you feel?"

"Good, happy."

"That's good. Do you remember my offer earlier?"

Naruto began to nod before freezing. Did he tell her yes? Was the offer still open if he hadn't? What if they were not willing to help him anymore? Right before he could build himself into a panic, Mabui's voice caused him to calm down.

"Hey, no need to worry. We'll help you get to Kumo. I was just asking because I need to tell you how we're going to do it."

Taking a few deep calming breaths, Naruto felt as his heart began to slow down. Then he remembered something she had just said and asked for some clarification.

"What do you mean how we're going to do it? Don't we just leave and go to Kumo?"

"Not really. It is difficult for members of a hidden village to move to a different hidden village, just incase they had any secret information they can give away. Getting permission will take time we don't have so we'll have to be sneaky about it. Just think of it as your first mission as a shinobi, leaving an enemy occupied territory with valuable assets."

"Awesome! My first mission and I'm not even a shinobi yet. I can't wait!" He said excitedly before pausing in embarrassment. "Um. Mabui-Chan? What's an asset?"

Mabui chuckled at his enthusiasm. "An asset can be important information, such as battle plans or tactics or items of value. Basically it's anything that helps you or your side."

"Oh sure. That makes sense. Thanks."

"No problem. Now then listen carefully because this is the plan we're using to get you out of here. The first thing is that we can't let you stay with us at the hotel. If we did it would make it obvious what happened and then someone could try to take you back. Any questions so far?"

"No I understand. If I am near you too often they'll know where to look to find me."

"Right. But we also can't let you live on the street for the next week until we're scheduled to leave so we rented an apartment under an assumed name in a run down part of the city. You can stay there until we leave. Don't worry about food or keeping it safe, we'll supply food and traps so you can live with no worries. I'll draw you a map when you have to go. Any questions?"

"If anyone see's me in the apartment won't that cause problems?"

"Good point. Before you leave C will give you some lessons on disguises. You can leave here as Naruto, run around to confuse anyone following you, put on a disguise and go to the apartment. Just be sure to move around outside of the apartment as Naruto for a little while each day."

"Alright! My first shinobi skill! Don't worry, I'll be the best at sneaking, hiding and disguises, just you wait!"

Mabui smiled at his obvious joy before continuing her instructions.

"Alright, I believe you. Now, we are scheduled to leave at noon on Monday, one week from now. On that Monday I want you to pack up all the supplies you don't use into the big backpack that's in the apartment. You can use the small backpack for whatever you have that want to take with you or think will be useful. Then I want you to leave the village through the south gate at ten. Leave the big backpack in the apartment, C will pick it up. Any questions?"

"What do I do when I leave the village? And what do I do if they don't let me leave?"

"Excellent questions Naruto! Those are the kinds of questions a shinobi needs to ask on missions. With that kind of thinking you'll go far."

"Now, to answer your questions. When you leave the village just walk along the road. I'll be along to pick you up when the shinobi that are sent to watch us leave. That means I'll probably get to you at around one. If they don't let you leave you can hide in an outgoing cart. The guards don't bother to check outgoing carts. Anything else?"

Naruto silently shook his head, still blushing and unable to speak because of the compliment.

"Alright then. You rest in here and I'll send in C to begin teaching you. And because I won't see you again until we meet on the road, I want to say good luck."

Naruto smiled brightly at Mabui as she got up and left the room.

"Thanks Mabui-Chan, I won't let you down. You can count on that."

_ Scene Break _

Naruto hummed happily to himself as he walked down the road. The past week had been amazing for him. He had warm food three times a day, hot showers for as long as he wanted and a soft, safe place to sleep.

The treatment he had to endure whenever he was out on the street had been even worse for him after he had someone treat him kindly but he had tolerated it by thinking about his new life, his first shinobi mission and his thought that it was hilarious how easy it was to fool the villagers of Konoha and had spent his last week pranking as many people as he could.

Naruto had thought it would be difficult to leave the village but it really wasn't. The moment he had told the gate guard he was leaving they let him through. One of the gate guards even gave him two hundred Ryō and a kunai when he promised he wouldn't come back.

But now none of that mattered. He was free from the village. He never had to deal with there hate or abuse ever again. He felt as if he was beginning a new life and in a way he was.

He checked the position of the sun and guessed that it was close to one. He smiled as he realized that he would meet Mabui soon. He had missed her during the week in the apartment but he had followed her instructions exactly.

Naruto heard a rustling from the woods next to the road. He turned, his smile getting brighter as his thoughts became reality. He smile crashed a moment later when three large men walked out of the woods instead of Mabui.

The three men looked quite rough, like some of the poorer drunks in Konoha. They were dressed in simple brown cloths that looked like they had been burlap sacks in their previous lives. What really caught his attention however were the weapons each man held.

The man on the left was the biggest of the three. He had a swollen nose that looked like it had been broken one too many times and carried a large, crude club. The man in the middle was shorter than his companions and looked heavier than the other two combined. To Naruto, he looked a little like a bowling ball with stumpy arms and legs. He carried a spear that was taller than he was. The man on the right's only distinguishing feature was that he was bald. He was armed with what looked like a farmer's kama.

The bald man stepped forward, gave a sinister smile and began to speak.

"Well, well, well. Wha' do we ha' here? Wha' ya doin' walkin' down this ere' road?"

Naruto gulped and tried to figure out what he was going to do. He quickly realized his only real option was to hope Mabui arrived. With that conclusion Naruto tried to stall for time.

"I'm just going to another village. My village didn't like me very much."

The man grinned in what was supposed to be disarming manner but actually just looked sickly.

"Tha's jus' to bad. Now, ya look like a nice enough boy so I'll jus tell it to ya straight. This here road gotsa toll. Tha toll is anytin we want from ya pack. So why don you just put ya pack on tha grounds so we cans take the toll."

Naruto was freaking out. He knew that he wasn't going to be able to stall for very long. He also knew that he couldn't let his pack fall into enemy hands. A good shinobi doesn't lose assets or mission objectives. Finally he decided on a course of action. His heartbeat slowed and he felt himself calm down.

A moment later Naruto removed the bag and placed it on the ground. The bald man smiled and motioned for the other two to search the bag. The two men moved closer to his bag. They reached his bag and the bowling ball man kneeled down to open it up.

The man's hand finished undoing the clasp that held the pack shut his hand reached out to grab the material and time froze. Naruto had all the time in the world to think. He wished Mabui was here, thought it was strange that he wasn't feeling nervous, thought that the trees were too green for this time of year and began planning another prank for the next citizen of Kona he met.

Finally the man opened the backpack and time reversed direction. There was a loud Bang and the bowling ball man fell backwards, his hands clutching his eyes.

Naruto rushed forward, pulling the kunai from the pocket he had hidden it in. He lashed out at the man with the broken nose, scoring a long, thin cut down his leg before he reached the downed man.

Putting his entire body into it he struck at the downed man with his kunai, driving it fairly deeply into the back of his leg. Using both hands he was able to pull the kunai back out and turn it towards the man he had hurt before.

The man with the broken nose rushed forward, club raised high. Naruto raised his kunai in a desperate defense. Luckily for Naruto the now thrashing bowling ball man chose that moment to roll over.

The man's sudden movement placed his legs right in the path of the charging man. The man couldn't avoid his partner's legs causing him to trip. The man smashed into Naruto's raised kunai, tearing it from his grip.

Everyone except the bowling ball man froze. Naruto's kunai was embedded to the ring in the man's right eye, his weight driving it deeper than Naruto by himself ever could.

Naruto's mind went had killed a man. It was mostly an accident and the man was a bandit trying to rob him but he had killed a man.

After a moment his shock was broken by a scream from the bald man.

"You kilt Haru! I was just gonna steal ya things but now I'ma kill ya!"

The bald man rushed at Naruto, kama raised above his head. Naruto glanced around trying to find a weapon. Seeing nothing he could get to and that the man was right in front of him he jumped backwards.

Naruto landed on a root that was coming up from the ground and tripped. The man's kama came down, barely missing his leg. Naruto tried to to scramble backwards but hit the tree the root had come from. The man raised his kama for another strike and Naruto desperately looked for a way to escape.

There was a dull, wet sound of metal cutting into meat and Naruto flinched. A moment later Naruto looked back at his attacker, confused at the lack of pain he was in.

It only took Naruto a single glance to figure out why the man hadn't hit him. In the man's chest, exactly over the location of his heart, was the ring of a kunai.

The bald man stumbled backwards and collapsed. The sound happened again and the bowling ball man stopped moaning. Naruto looked around, hoping that he was finally safe.

He jumped when he felt arms suddenly grab him. He began to struggle but stopped when the person who grabbed him began to speak.

"Calm down. There's no need to struggle. It's just me."

"Mabui?"

"That's right. Are you alright? You're not hurt anywhere are you?"

"No, I'm not hurt. You came just in time."

"That's good."

Naruto suddenly realized that he was shaking. Mabui tightened her grip on Naruto and placed her head on his shoulder.

"I just want to say that I'm sorry I didn't get here sooner. I didn't know there would be bandits here, I didn't think anyone would be stupid enough to attack people so close to a hidden village."

"I. 's fine. I.I.I'm alright." Naruto froze for a moment as a memory came back to him. "Oh Kami, I just killed a man."

Naruto stumbled away from Mabui and threw up. He began to tear up as all the emotions from what had happened began to come to him all at once. Mabui just walked over and pulled him into her lap.

She held him and began to whisper reassurances in his ear. After ten minutes of him crying he began to calm down. Mabui felt that he would understand her now that he had calmed down a little and worked to calm him down more.

"It's alright. You're doing fine. You're going to be fine."

"But. But. I killed someone. I almost died."

"It's alright. You're alright. You did what you had to to protect yourself and that's all that matters."

Naruto felt himself tear up again and shook his head angrily.

"Why can't I stop crying?! Look at me, some shinobi I'll be when I grow up. My first dangerous situation and I break down."

"Hey now, that's no way to think. You're doing really well. What you're feeling right now is shock, it happens to everyone the first time they kill someone or get into a life threatening situation. It even happened to me."

Naruto continued to cry but nodded his head to show that he was listening.

"In fact, you're doing even better than I was when this happened to me. I was twice as old as you are now and had shinobi training to help me. You must be very brave to be doing so well on your own."

Naruto nodded his head again and managed to stop his tears. He sniffled a little but asked a question that was very important to him.

"I.I'll have to do it again, kill people I mean, or get into fights where I might die if I become a shinobi, won't I?"

Mabui sighed. She had hoped to get him used to that idea when he had more than just his dream of being a shinobi to rely on.

"I won't lie to you. Yes, you will. Being a shinobi is a very dangerous job. Things like this happen all the time. You will face situations where you can die and you will have to kill again."

" do you deal with it?"

"I'll tell you what my father told me when I told him I wanted to be a kunoichi. The life of a shinobi is hard. You will have to face many dangers and death is your constant companion. For me being a shinobi is worth all of those negatives because it lets me fulfill my dream of making the world a better place. In order for you to be a shinobi you need to pick a dream and decide if your dream is worth those negatives."

Naruto raises his head and looked into Mabui's eyes.

"What's your dream that makes all the terrible things worthwhile?"

"I am a kunoichi because I believe that my actions make the world a safer place. Every time I face the dangerous or terrible parts of being a shinobi I remind myself that doing this keeps my loved ones safe. For you, you need to decide why you want to be a shinobi and if your reasons are good enough for you to put up with all the terrible things a shinobi will face. Many people decide that there reasons aren't good enough and that's alright to."

Mabui stopped speaking and began to gently rock Naruto back and forth. She knew that there was nothing else she could say, it was up to him to decide.

Finally, after ten minutes of silence, Naruto spoke up.

"I still want to be a shinobi, even with all the bad things that happen."

Mabui smiled at him.

"Alright. I want you to know that I'll do what I can to help. Now, we've been here for a long time and we need to move. Go get your pack and I'll clean up here."

Naruto nodded with a serious expression on his face and went to get his pack. While he was turned to other way Mabui quickly retrieved the kunai in the dead bodies and dragged them into a pile. After a quick glance at Naruto to check that he wasn't looking, she used a high powered Fire Jutsu to incinerate the bodies.

She turned around and walked over to Naruto, moving quickly so he wouldn't have time to make questions about the bodies. He may have killed someone and decided to be a shinobi but he was still six and she wanted to protect him where she could.

"We have to move really fast do I'm going to carry you. Hop onto my back and hold on tight."

Naruto nodded and climbed onto Mabui's back carefully. He held on but quickly tightened his grip as she took off.

_ Scene Break _

Mabui stopped suddenly on the branch she had just landed on. She glanced back at Naruto who was still clinging to her back.

"Almost there, just a little longer. You're doing great. Do you need me to carry you yet?"

Naruto smiled tiredly at her, hanging onto a kunoichi's back while she's tree jumped for six hours was physically exhausting. That, combined with the emotional exhaustion he was feeling from his first kill, made Naruto very glad he would be able to sleep soon.

"I'm alright Mabui-Chan, I can hold on."

Mabui didn't respond to his words but she did start moving again. True to both their words Naruto was able to hold onto Mabui's back until they reached the camp the team set up.

B looked up as Naruto and Mabui landed next to the fire.

"Hey, what took you guys so long? You should have been here an hour ago, we were just about to go look for you."

C glanced up but decided not to contribute to the conversation.

"Naruto ran into some trouble on the way out of Konoha. It seems that some farmers thought it was a good idea to take up banditry."

C got up and moved over to Naruto.

"Are you alright? Did they hurt you in anyway? Here, let me take a look."

C began a medical jutsu but stopped as Mabui continued with her explanation.

"He's fine. He's just exhausted from holding onto me for so long. They never got to injure him."

B nodded and motioned to a place by the fire.

"Well let him sit down then. We can rest for the night here, we're safe enough."

Mabui nodded and brought Naruto over to the fire. He took of his backpack, accepted a bowl of soup that B handed him, and sat down on the spot that B had indicated. Mabui accepted another bowl and sat next to him.

C returned to the fire and sat across from Naruto.

"I'm sorry that you had to go through that, it took longer than we expected for the Konoha shinobi to leave us alone. I'm just glad that Mabui was able to get to you before anything happened."

Mabui looked up from her soup when she heard her name. She stopped eating for a moment as she turned to Naruto.

"I didn't really."

C gave Mabui a look of confusion.

"What do you mean you didn't really."

"Exactly that. I didn't get there before anything happened. I just arrived in time to stop the last guy."

C blinked in surprise.

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"When I got there Naruto had already put down two of the men. I just helped with the last one."

Naruto shuffled uncertainly as B and C turned their gaze towards him.

"Really? what happened?"

"I'm not to sure. I just got there at the end of it."

Mabui looked at Naruto and made a gesture signaling that he should tell the story. Naruto looked uncomfortable but did as Mabui asked.

"I was just heading down the road like you told me to when three men came out and told me they were going to take anything they wanted from my stuff. I couldn't let them have my backpack so I tried to stall until Mabui-Chan could get there."

C looked like he wanted to ask a question but held it back after a quick glare from Mabui.

"They didn't really want to wait so I put my backpack on the ground and waited for my trap to be sprung."

This time Mabui didn't stop C from interrupting the story.

"What trap?"

"The trap in my bag of course. If anyone opened it without pulling the right string to disarm the trap, they would get ground pepper launched into their face."

All three shinobi paused at that. They hadn't even thought that Naruto might decide to trap the backpack.

"How did you learn to do that? And perhaps more importantly why did you set up a trap in the bag?"

"When I lived on the streets I learned how to do some traps to protect myself from thieves. My traps got better though when I studied the traps you set up around the apartment.I set up the trap because Mabui told be that assets needed to be protected."

Seeing that C was done with his questions for now, Naruto continued with his story.

"One of the men opened the bag and set off the trap so I attacked his partner first. I thought that if I attacked while he was distracted by the trap I could take him out, that would mean that I only had to fight the third guy."

B praised him for his explanation. "Good job! That's excellent planning. Keep thinking like that and you'll go far as a shinobi."

Naruto blushed at the praise and continued a little more enthusiastically than he had been before.

"Well, my plan worked because I did get to hit him. Unfortunately I only cut his leg a little and he was able to keep fighting. I decided to..."

"Whoa! Wait a moment! Did you say cut? How did you cut his leg?"

"With a kunai. I hid it in a pocket so I could use it if I needed it."

"I'm glad you had the kunai with you but where did you get it? I know we didn't give you one and all the traps had a complete set of kunai so you didn't get it from there."

"One of the gate guards gave it to me when I left. He said that if I promised to never return he would give me two hundred Ryō and some shinobi gear. I figured that I could get some free stuff for doing something I was already doing so I accepted."

C looked at Mabui, his confusion clear for her to see. Mabui took pity on C and took over the questions so he could figure out whatever was bothering him.

"That was certainly good thinking. Who knows what would have happened if you didn't have the kunai. Why don't you continue the story."

"Alright. Sure. Uh, where was I? Oh, right! When I didn't really hurt the guy I was aiming for I decided to make sure that the guy who was on the ground wouldn't get back in the fight. I ran over to him and stabbed him in the leg. After that things got really difficult."

"Oh," Mabui gently teased, "and what happened before wasn't difficult?"

"Oh no, it was. But after I stabbed the guy my kunai got covered in blood. It was hard to hold and even harder to pull out. I managed by using both hands."

Naruto's gaze faded out as he relived those last few moments. Mabui regretted her teasing because it only seemed to have brought up bad memories.

"I turned around to see the guy I had hurt running right at me. I panicked and held the kunai up, hoping that he would stop." He paused for a moment, his gaze far away, clearly forgetting about everyone else in the camp. "In the end I got lucky, I guess. His friend on the ground rolled over and tripped him. He fell right on my kunai."

The camp was silent as everyone processed that. B and C both looked at Mabui, the question clear for her to see. She nodded, silently answering their question, causing the two men to grimace. After another moment of silence Naruto snapped back to the present.

With an obviously false cheerful voice Naruto continued his story.

"After that not much happened. I backed away from the third guy, tripped and Mabui saved me."

C wanted to let the whole story go because remembering obviously caused Naruto pain but he had one last question that he needed answered.

"Naruto, if I may ask, why did you fight so hard to keep the backpack? Why didn't you just give it to them and leave?"

"I couldn't give it to them because they were bullies. Over the past year, when I lived on the streets, I ran into many bullies who beat people up to make them give up. I made a promise to myself that I would never give in. No matter what happened I would fight the bullies with everything I had because if I gave anything less than everything I had, I would be breaking my promise, and that's something I'll never do."

For a moment the only sound that filled the camp was the crackling of the fire, each person was lost in there own thoughts.

'That's right. I will never give up. I will fight anyone who uses their strength to hurt people weaker than them. That's my promise.'

'I guess that's the Will of Fire Konohagakure always talks about."

'I wish all shinobi followed such noble ideals.'

'I just hope Naruto can keep his determination when faced with real life.'

Finally Naruto broke the silence. "Besides, Mabui told me that shinobi protected assets so that's what I did."

"Um, Naruto? I think you got my message mixed up. Shinobi to protect assets, and assets are anything that can help you or your village, but when I was talking about assets I meant that you were the asset, not the backpack."

Naruto looked greatly confused. "Then why did you tell me to fill the backpack with whatever I thought would be useful. Doesn't that mean that I should fill the backpack with assets?"

Mabui smiled and answered his question. "Well in a way it does. What you didn't know was that sometimes you have to use assets to protect more important assets. In this case losing the backpack would lose you a few assets but it would have protected you, the more important asset."

Naruto digested this information for a moment but continued to look confused. "Does this mean that you don't want the assets I collected? I spent a lot of time gathering everything that I could that might help Kumogakure."

Mabui decided to humor Naruto if it helped keep him away from the memory of his first kill.

"I didn't say that." She said playfully. "Why don't you show me what you brought."

Naruto smiled happily and dove for his backpack. "Great. I'm really proud that I managed to get all this stuff some of it was really difficult to get."

Naruto reached deep into his bag and pulled out a handful of scrolls. He held out the scrolls so that Mabui could examine them. Mabui blinked in surprise, she had expected him to have games or food or even a favorite piece of clothing. Scrolls were entirely unexpected.

After a moment she took the scroll from his grasp. As she accepted the scrolls from him Naruto looked up at her expectantly, obviously hoping for a happy reaction. Shaking her head at the strangeness of the situation, Mabui opened the first scroll.

She glanced at it, intending to skim it so as not to hurt Naruto's feelings but ended up stopping as she realized what she was actually holding.

After a long moment of staring at the scroll she rolled it up and turned to Naruto. "How did you manage to get jutsu scrolls? Jutsu scrolls are always heavily guarded to keep people from stealing them."

At Mabui's words B turned back to the conversation.

"Wait, what? Those are jutsu scrolls? Are they real?"

"The one I read was. I already knew it so I can say the technique scroll was completely accurate."

Both B and C moved closer to Mabui, taking a scroll from the pile Naruto had given her. After a moment of examining them, they closed the scrolls and turned to Naruto.

"I agree with Mabui. How did you get these? This jutsu is only C rank and fairly well known but it would be guarded heavily anyway."

"Those are only the newest ones. If you want I have some more powerful ones."

Disregarding their questions for a moment Naruto reached deeply into the backpack. He pulled out handful after handful of scrolls causing the watching shinobi's jaws to drop. After a minute and two dozen scrolls Naruto evidently found what he was looking for. With a triumphant yell he pulled an old scroll, yellowed with age, out of the bag and handed it to B.

"That is the most powerful technique I could find."

B opened the scroll and began to read it. His eyes, already wide because of the surprise of the scrolls, widened to the point the Naruto was worried that his eyes would fall out.

"This is a B rank forbidden technique. I've seen it used in the field and I know Konoha is very protective of it. How did you get this?"

While B was reading the scroll that Naruto had handed him Mabui had picked up one of the scrolls that Naruto had tossed aside. As B finished his question she tossed in her own.

"This scroll is a clan technique. I have never even heard of anyone getting managing to steal one of these scrolls. How is this possible?"

B snapped around and took the scroll form Mabui. He glanced over it himself before turning to look at Naruto incredulously. Even if all the other scrolls where D ranks techniques what they had seen so far made this a treasure trove.

Naruto scratched the back of his head sheepishly. "Well when I started going through the trash to find food I noticed that sometimes people would throughout scrolls. I ignored them at first because they weren't food. Later, when winter came around, I took them to try burning to keep me warm. I read one before I started burning them and found that they were jutsu scrolls."

B had to shake his head in pure disbelief. This was unbelievable to him.

"I tried to do some but I couldn't so I just hid them for when I became a shinobi. When you told me to bring any assets I had I collected the ones I had and spent the week looking for anymore."

Suddenly B started laughing. C and Mabui quickly followed leaving Naruto very confused. C, seeing Naruto's confusion, began laughing so hard he fell over. Finally, after ten minutes they began to calm down. Seeing that Naruto was still confused, Mabui decided to explain a little.

"I'm sorry Naruto, it's just that jutsu scrolls are so heavily guarded, and clan scrolls even more so, that we weren't expecting this. You surprised us so we laughed."

"Really? It was fairly easy for me to get them. I only had to look in the shinobi apartment trash every few days and a few clan incinerators the day before they lit them. It was easy for me."

"Trust me, this is really unexpected but welcome. I don't think that there has ever been an intelligence mission that has gotten so much long-term useful information. Even if you just had gotten the clan scroll it would still have been the most successful intelligence gathering mission I have ever heard of."

Naruto frowned for a moment before reaching into the bag again. He withdrew another handful of scrolls and held them out for the shinobi to take.

"But I have dozens of clan scrolls, they were actually easier to get than the regular scrolls because I didn't have to deal with anyone else looking through the garbage."

His words proved to be to much for the gathered shinobi to take. The innocent way he went about telling them that he had single handedly found a massive security breach and had gotten enough information to win a war was hilarious. For the second time that night the shinobi devolved into helpless laughter while Naruto looked on with confusion.

_ Scene Break _

It had taken a week because they had to slow down Naruto but the group of shinobi had managed to reach the land of lightning. Naruto could barely handle his excitement.

All throughout the week the shinobi had been telling him stories and facts about Kumogakure that had caused his anticipation to sky rocket. Finally, after six hours, the group stopped.

B, who had been carrying him, turned to Mabui and handed him off. Free of his burden, B jumped forward and waited for a moment. Another shinobi, dressed almost exactly like C appeared and the two talked for a moment. Finally the new shinobi nodded and gave a signal. Three more shinobi appeared at the first shinobi's side.

B said a few more things to the shinobi, after a moment the four new shinobi took up a diamond shape around the original group of shinobi and they continued their journey.

After another half an hour of traveling the enlarged group of eight came out of the mountain pass they had been traveling in. The four shinobi who had escorted the group in gave a salute and disappeared.

Mabui put Naruto down and pointed to the now visible walls of the hidden village.

"Welcome to Kumogakure, the best hidden village in the world, and your new home."

Naruto looked at the tall walls and felt some new emotion rising in his chest. Naruto smiled. He truly was home.


	2. Chapter 2

**I am back with yet another chapter of A Kumo will take a little more than a week to go through one chapter to make sure it has as little mistakes as possible. Now on with the story.**

Disclaimer: I do not own the Naruto franchise nor do I make any money off of my work. This is done entirely for fun.

I apologize about how long this chapter took to be posted. It was a chapter that existed in between two scenes that I had already mapped out and I wasn't quite sure how the transition would work. I also found out that writing ten thousand words a chapter is more difficult than I had previously thought. All that being said, I have a definite idea of where the next chapter is going so it will probably be out faster than this one.

I want to thank everyone who commented, liked or favorited this story. It is the first one I have written and it makes my day to know that people enjoy it.

Hopefully this chapter answered many of the questions and concerns I got from the reviews. I welcome more reviews and any input or constructive criticism that anyone wants to give me.

Naruto sat on Mabui's lap and tried to stare at the man who sat across the desk from him without being noticed. The man was unlike anyone Naruto had seen before and Naruto wanted to know more about him.

The man Naruto had been staring at was wearing a pair of black workout pants and a long, white trench coat that was completely unbuttoned. This was quite strange because the room they were in was actually incredibly cold, so much so that Naruto wished he had a coat of his own.

But that was not what fascinated Naruto. The man's clothing, however out of place they were, were nothing special to Naruto. Konohagakure was a large trading city and he had seen people dressed in all sorts of strange fashions.

What fascinated Naruto so much that he was staring at the man was the man himself. The man was by far the most muscular man Naruto had ever seen.

At first Naruto had been staring in disbelief, he had not thought anyone could be more muscular than B but that had passed ten minutes ago.

Now Naruto was staring in admiration. To Naruto the man's muscles represented his dedication to becoming a strong shinobi and Naruto was wondering if he would ever be able to become like the man in front of him.

Finally the man shifted from his thinking pose. He quickly scanned the group, as if to see if anything had changed in the minutes he had been focused on his own mind. Finally he spoke.

"I honestly am not sure what to say. By all accounts you failed the original mission I sent you on. Not only did you fail to create a lasting peace treaty but you took a citizen of Konohagakure without permission. Wars have been started over lesser offenses."

The adults in the group began to sweat nervously. Mabui tightened her grip on Naruto as if afraid he would disappear.

The man continued his speech. "On the other hand you achieved the far more difficult mission of bringing a most likely powerful bloodline to Kumo. You also managed to get more long lasting intelligence than any intelligence gathering mission I have ever assigned."

Mabui relaxed her hold on Naruto a little. She had known the man who was giving this speech for a long time and she was confident that all would be well.

After another pause that seemed to stretch on forever the man spoke again. His words seemed to vindicate Mabui's feelings and caused the general tension in the room to drop severely.

"I guess I have to say good job. While everything could have gone horribly wrong, and still can, the information and possible bloodline you brought back will strengthen Kumo more than an alliance with Konoha ever could."

B decided that they were out of danger so he decided to speak.

"Hey, A, I'm not even sure that an alliance with Konoha is a good idea anymore."

A's face became expressionless. He motioned for B to continue with his reasons.

"I mean that while they do have the most money and shinobi of any hidden village, from what I saw while I was there, they are actually quite weak."

"Oh? What do you mean they're weak? From what you just said they sound fairly strong."

"Well, it's just that the Konoha shinobi I've seen are really weak. I'd say that the majority of their shinobi are actually genin and that our average genin would beat their average genin easily."

A nodded his head thoughtfully. "Hmm, and what brought you to this conclusion?"

"When we were walking around Konoha I had my team keep a running count of every shinobi we had seen, their jobs and an estimate of their power levels. While that is not the most accurate way of taking their measure I would say that there were five genin to every chunin we met. On terms of jonin, I would say there were four chunin to every jonin we saw."

A turned to C to ask his next question. "How were you measuring rank? I doubt they would just tell you the ranks of any shinobi you met."

C frowned for a moment before answering the question. "Each of us gathered as much information about those we met as we could get and at the end of the day we put the information together to get an idea of ranks based on the averages that we found."

"And you agree with B's assessment of Konoha?"

"If anything I would think that B's assessment is generous. From what I saw and the list we compiled, if we were to attack Konoha right now, we would win. We would take heavy losses but we would win."

A sat back in his chair. He was silent for a moment as he processed the information before turning to Mabui. "And you? What do you think?"

"I have to agree with the others. From what I could see their shinobi were not nearly as well disciplined, ready for combat or even as strong as ours are. If we were to attack I would say the majority of our losses would come from their sheer numbers, their kekkei genkai, and their occasional prodigy that Konoha seems to produce."

B jumped back into the conversation with more supporting information. "I mean, the watchers they sent after us were so easy to evade that I almost did it by accident when I got lost."

C jumped in with his own comments. "The shinobi they sent to make sure we left their territory got bored and left after two hours, while we were still in their borders."

Mabui also decided to throw in her two cents. "I also have to say that they are extremely negligent about security. All the scrolls that Naruto retrieved were taken from the trash. Clan secrets and fairly powerful jutsu scrolls were completely unguarded after they were disposed of."

A nodded his head in understanding. "Do you have the exact numbers and information that you used in estimating the strength of Konoha."

C nodded and silently handed over a bundle of scrolls. A quickly read through the scrolls before putting them to the side. He would have analyst double check the information later.

"Do you think that they were putting on a poor showing of power as a trap?"

The three adult fell silent as the reviewed their time in Konoha. Naruto frowned for a moment and picked through the scrolls that he still had in his bag.

A suppressed a smile at Naruto's antics, he still remembered how bored he was when his father made him sit in meetings like this one when he was Naruto's age.

Finally the silence was broken by an unexpected voice.

"There it is." Naruto exclaimed while pulling out a scroll from his bag. Mabui blushed in embarrassment at Naruto's behavior and tried to shush him but Naruto ignored her in favor of holding out the scroll to A.

A looked at the scroll and raised an eyebrow. After a moment he decided to humor the boy and took the scroll. Naruto, now free of his burden, explained why he wanted A to look at that particular scroll.

"I found that scroll in the Hokage Tower's garbage pile. You wanted to know about the strength of Konoha's shinobi and I think this has some information that will be useful."

A sat back in his chair and opened the scroll. He was completely silent as he read through the scroll. When he finished he put the scroll down and turned all his attention towards Naruto.

"Are you sure this is accurate? Can you say for certain that this was not left out as a trick?"

Naruto had become nervous when A's full attention had fallen on him. He took a deep breath to allow him to speak and gave his answer.

"I guess it is possible it was a trick but I found this scroll a month before anyone from Kumo arrived. If it is a trick, it has to be really elaborate because I have other scrolls saying the same thing."

A nodded his head thoughtfully and held out his hand. Naruto quickly figured out what he wanted and looked through his bag. He began pulling out scrolls and handing them to Mabui to give to A.

Finally Naruto stopped and looked up. Sitting on A's desk were ten scrolls including the one he had handed over earlier. A was glancing through them to confirm that the information he was looking for was there.

They waited for a minute, the silence broken only by the sound made by the scrolls as they opened and closed. Finally A put down the last scroll and called in his temporary secretary.

"Send a message to Kenji Nakada. Tell him to get here with his best analysts as soon as he can."

"Of course. Right away Raikage-sama."

A turned his full attention back to Naruto. "I thought that all you had was jutsu scrolls?"

Naruto sweated nervously, thinking he was in trouble. He hurried to explain.

"Not really. I have lots of scrolls, anything I could collect really. It's just that everyone was so excited about the jutsu scrolls I forgot about the rest."

A sent a quick disapproving look towards B, causing him to duck his head before turning his attention back to Naruto.

"Is there anything else like these scrolls that you have?"

Naruto nodded his head hesitantly, unsure of his answer.

"I have scrolls other than jutsu scrolls if that's what you're asking."

A held out his hand again and looked at Naruto expectantly. Naruto got the message and began pulling out scrolls from his pack once again. Mabui looked on, curious at just how many scrolls he seemed to have.

B decided to ask just that question. "Yo, Naruto. How many scrolls did you fit in that bag?"

Naruto stopped for a moment and rubbed the back of his head sheepishly. "As many as I could find, I didn't really count. I just collected all the scrolls that I could and brought them with me in case they were important."

A cleared his thought causing Naruto to jump. He glanced up to see that A was reading some of the scrolls he was turning in. Naruto remembered what he was supposed to do so he went back to unloading scrolls on A's desk.

Ten minutes after Naruto pulled out the last non-jutsu scroll the door opened and a group of six men dressed in what he now saw was standard Kumo ninja attire entered the room. The man in the lead moved to stand in front of A.

"Kenji Nakada with analyst team A reporting as ordered, Raikage-sama."

A looked up from the scroll he was reading and addressed the new arrivals.

"You're here. Good. The team I sent to make a new treaty with Konoha returned with Naruto, a defector from Konoha, and valuable information for you to go over."

The man nodded and focused on the unfamiliar face in the room.

"You must be Naruto then. My name is Kenji Nakada and I'm head of Kumo's intelligence department. Once you get settled in we'll have a talk about your life in Konoha. It's standard practice with defectors, we want to see if we can get information about your previous village and anything you say can help."

A interrupted the conversation. "You'll have a second interview later but I think you'll want to do a quick one now."

"Why is that Raikage-sama?"

"Naruto brought along quite a few scrolls that have some valuable intelligence when he defected. It will take you a few weeks to read through most of it, and you can have a more in depth interview when you have, but I need you to analyze a few of these scrolls right now."

Kenji glanced at the massive pile of scrolls on the desk and nodded his head. A fished out the scrolls Naruto had originally given him and the assessment on the shinobi B's team had met.

Kenji looked at the information before passing it to his team. He turned and focused on Naruto.

"I have to ask, is he reliable as a source. He could be trying to feed us false information so we make a mistake."

C jumped to Naruto's defense immediately. "He is reliable. I personally checked his medical information and corroborated his story with over twenty random citizens and shinobi I met. Unless all of Konoha was in on putting a cover story together he's telling the truth."

Kenji nodded his head and addressed Naruto. "I'm sorry that I had to ask that but I have to be careful."

Naruto nodded his head. "I understand. Even in Konoha, the village's safety always came first."

Kenji smiled at Naruto, knowing that he would get more information if he was friendly and continued with the conversation.

"Thank you for being so understanding. Now then, why don't you tell me how you came across this information."

Naruto nodded and began his story once again. He knew that the more information he gave them the bigger an asset he would be and the more they would protect him.

He trusted Mabui's promise that they would let him join Kumo but figured that every little bit helped. He finished his explanation and waited for the next question.

"That's very interesting. Do you think that the information was planted? It seems extremely convenient that it was so unguarded."

This time B spoke up. "It is, of course, possible that the information was planted but it seems unlikely. From my own observations I would say that security in Konoha is really lax."

Naruto decided to contribute more information.

"I don't think someone left these out for me to find. I've been finding them for over a year before I left."

Kenji nodded thoughtfully. It wasn't likely that the scrolls were planted because of how long it had been happening but it wasn't impossible. The next question came from one of the analysts.

"Do you have the rest of the scrolls? They seem to be missing the months of February and June."

Naruto ducked his head in embarrassment.

"No. Those are the only ones I had. I probably had them but there is a good chance that I burned them."

The analyst looked so taken aback that Naruto hurried to explain.

"When I originally took them I was planning to use them to start fires so I would have warmth over the winter. I took all sorts of scrolls and burned anything that wasn't a jutsu scrolls because I had no need to keep them."

Mabui looked up and asked a question that had been bothering her.

"If you had been using scrolls to start fires why do you have so many left? Especially old ones?"

"Fires were really noticeable so I tried not to use them unless I really had to. Then it became warm again but I continued collecting them in case I couldn't find any in winter. When I started using them for fires again I would just grab a handful, I didn't go from oldest to newest or anything like that."

Mabui nodded and the analyst shook his head. After another moment the analyst that had come in last asked another question.

"Um, I'm really sorry but I'm used to analyzing battle reports. I fail to see how these contain useful information and what I should be analyzing them for."

A turned towards Kenji and glared at him. Kenji was quick to give an explanation.

"You said to bring my best analysts and he really is good with battle reports. He's just new to the rest of his job," Kenji turned to glare at the analyst who had spoken. "Something we will be fixing a soon as we can."

The analyst gulped, knowing that he had drawn the ire of his superiors. The analyst next to him decided to help out by explaining what they were looking for.

"These are reports of missions rejected by Konoha. What is really strange is that there are so many."

"I get that but I still don't get what I'm supposed to be looking for."

A couldn't believe that the man was one of his best analysts and made sure that everyone knew it.

"Kami help me, this is one of our best analysts? Naruto could figure it out and he's six!"

Naruto decided to keep quiet about the fact that he had actually misunderstood what the scrolls were about. He had thought that the scrolls were showing the ranks of the shinobi who had completed each mission.

Kenji picked up the explanation so that A could calm down.

"Missions are the lifeblood of a hidden village. Any mission that is turned down weakens the village by losing clients, money and damaging the village's reputation. No village would turn down a mission unless it really had to."

The analyst nodded his head but his expression still showed his lack of understanding. Kenji sighed and questioned whether or not the analyst really should have the job he currently had. Finally he decided to just spell out what he should have seen for himself.

"If a village turns down a job it is because they are unable to take the job. This can mean that the job is to difficult for them to take or that they don't have enough shinobi to take the job."

The analyst finally began to understand what Kenji was talking about. He blushed in embarrassment and decided to show that he wasn't a complete idiot.

"Oh, I get it. The problem is that Konoha has the most shinobi of any hidden village so that means that they don't have enough skilled shinobi to fulfill all these jobs. The ranks are mostly A and B so that means they have a lack of chunin and jonin who normally do these jobs."

Kenji ignored A's muttered "Finally" and finished his explanation.

"Yes, exactly. Now we don't know how many mission were accepted and what rank they were but based on the average number of missions we get a month at each difficulty and action reports that mention Konoha shinobi I would say that that conclusion is accurate. I would also have to say that based on how many months this has been going on this is a problem that's not really being fixed. That lets us draw many more conclusions."

A different analyst decided to speak up.

"I will be able to draw a more complete conclusion when I can check the records and look at more data but I would say that that means the average Konoha shinobi is a genin, and from the C ranks in there, not very strong ones."

Kenji turned to Naruto and asked him an important question.

"Over the past two week, when B was in Konoha, was the amount of shinobi present different than what is normally there?"

Everyone in the room focused their attention on Naruto. He knew this was a very important question so he took his time thinking about his answer. Finally he nodded his head and responded.

"You know there were fewer shinobi around then there usually were. It made moving around easier because there weren't any shinobi hoping along the rooftops."

All the analysts in the room frowned at his response before one gave a tentative response.

"Could be they took in a lot of missions. Maybe they fixed whatever this problem was and decided to show they were still reliable."

Kenji shook his head and offered a counter response. "I don't think so, we would have noticed because our missions would have lowered. Maybe it was a show of force. Saying that they are so strong they don't need many shinobi to defend their village."

The analysts fell into a group and began to discuss the possibilities. After a moment Kenji turned to A.

"We'll need to analyze more information before we can have a definite theory. Give us a week to go over the other scrolls and our own information."

A nodded and motioned for the analysts to take the scrolls.

"Fine. I expect a full report in one week. I need to know if Konoha is actually weak or not. Kenji, stay for a moment, I need to ask you a few questions."

The analysts moved over to the table and took all the scrolls. They left the office as a group, still discussing their ideas. Finally A turned his attention back to Naruto.

"I want you to know that you did good work. You have great instincts to have brought that information. If you keep it up you'll go far as a shinobi."

Naruto beamed at the praise he received. He was glad that so many people believed that he could fulfill his dream.

"For your effort in gathering this information from a semi-hostile hidden village and returning it to Kumo safely I am awarding you with a successfully completed A-rank mission. That means you will receive a sum of five-hundred thousand ryō."

A paused for a moment to let this sink in. Naruto was shocked and excited, this was more than he had ever believed he would have. A continued when he saw that Naruto understood what he was saying.

"You will also receive citizenship in Kumogakure after the standard three month waiting period. As you are an orphan you will also get an apartment free of charge until you become a genin or reach the age of sixteen and a monthly stipend of two-thousand ryō."

Naruto was smiling widely. Part of him had believed that Kumo would be the exact same as Konoha and he was relieved that he was obviously mistaken. A smirked at Naruto's obvious joy and decided to give his last announcement.

"Also, because you were the one to retrieve those jutsu scrolls that will help the village I will have a copy of each scroll made for you to keep. You can start your own library with them. Just make sure that you have someone with you when you start learning them, for your safety if nothing else."

Naruto nodded his head happily. He this was beyond his wildest dreams. He was accepted in Kumo and was well on his way to becoming a shinobi.

"Thank you very much Raikage-sama. I will become a great Kumo shinobi, I won't let you down."

A smirked at his enthusiasm. "Now then, the apartment I am giving you is apartment 5D in Building number 10. I believe Mabui can help you find it as she lives in apartment 5A in the same building."

Naruto's eyes grew huge and he looked up at Mabui. She smiled and nodded her head, happy that Naruto was being accepted and that she would be able to keep an eye on him.

"I'll take you there later, after the Raikage dismisses us."

A addressed Mabui with his next comment. "Then you can take him now. The two of you can go for now, just remember to come back next week when the analysts are giving their reports. You can pick up the apartment key from my secretary on your way out."

Naruto smiled at A and jumped up. Mabui followed him up a moment later. At Mabui's prodding Naruto bowed to A and followed her out. The door closed and the four men remaining in the room waited for a moment.

After a minute of silence Kenji spoke.

"Are you sure that's a good idea Raikage-sama? Shouldn't we restrict his movements until we're sure of his loyalty."

A responded to his chief of intelligence gathering.

"I understand your concern but I am reasonably sure that we can trust his loyalty. It's possible that he's really a deep cover agent, especially because of that damned Yamanaka clan but it's extremely unlikely."

C jumped in with supporting information.

"Like I said earlier, his medical history checked out and we verified his story from many different sources. I also gave him many cognitive tests that we have used to find Konoha sleeper agents before and he turned up clean. We will have to do a more in depth examination to be sure but I think it's safe to assume he's clean."

Kenji frowned for a moment but nodded.

"I'll want those tests done, we can have them as part of the physical we give him so he doesn't get suspicious. We should also check for seals, Konoha had some fuinjutsu masters that we need to watch for."

A nodded his head. "Agreed. I'll send over the order to the medical examiners."

C raised the next concern. "Are you sure it was wise to give him the jutsu scrolls. He is very young and he could cause a lot of damage with them."

A waved away that concern. "Not really. I looked through them and they were mostly E and D rank jutsu. Useful on the road but not very destructive. There are a couple of C rank and even one B rank jutsu but they require training and more chakra than a six year old can use."

C shook his head at that. "I wouldn't be so sure of that. I'm a chakra sensor and I can definitely say that Naruto has more chakra than any six year old I have ever met. Hell, he has more chakra than some Jonin I know. I almost thought he was lying about his age but my medical scans confirmed it."

A frowned at this news. Finally he shook his head. "While that is highly unusual he still needs training to use any of those jutsu. Do you know why he has such high chakra reserves?"

"Not really. Part of it could be his kekkei genkai, the Uzumaki clan always did have larger chakra reserves than most people but that wouldn't account for all of it. The physical should give us more information to work with."

B decided that there was a much more important issue than whether or not Naruto was a sleeper agent.

"Are we going to war with Konoha? Because from your earlier statements it seems that you want to go to war with Konoha."

A was silent for a moment before shaking his head.

"I don't think so. Even if all the information we got is true we would still be weakened enough that we might be attacked. I just want to know because I need to know how much of a threat everyone is and how much my efforts to make our village stronger are working."

B sighed in relief. "Good. If you had really wanted to I would have fought but I really want to avoid a war if I can."

A nodded his head thoughtfully and dismissed the shinobi gathered before him. He leaned out of the door and addressed his secretary.

"Clear my appointments for today, I don't want to be disturbed unless there is an emergency."

His secretary nodded her head.

"Of course Raikage-sama. No one shall disturb you."

He turned back to his office.

"Good," he muttered. "because I have a lot to think about."

_ Scene Break _

Hokage's Tower, Konohagakure

"Report!" snapped Sarutobi. The shinobi standing in front of his desk snapped to attention and began to speak quickly.

"We have confirmed that the boy has definitely left the village. From what we can tell he left from the south gate roughly a week ago. The guards on duty claimed that he attacked them by surprise and hurt them badly. He supposedly almost killed them but left when reinforcements arrived."

The Hokage shook his head angrily. "That is an obvious lie. No child completely untrained in any way could possibly take down two chunin, even from a surprise attack."

"Excuse me Hokage-sama, while I agree with you that no untrained child could have attacked and defeated two chunin we all know that that thing is no child. The Kyuubi..."

The shinobi was interrupted when the Hokage slammed his fist into the table.

"Enough! My laws are still in effect! Finish that sentence and I will not hesitate to fulfill the mandatory punishment."

The shinobi cowered away from the Hokage, suddenly remembering that the man in front of him was known as the Shinobi no Kami for a very good reason.

The Hokage calmed down a little and continued as if he had not been interrupted.

"Besides, any attack would have been reported and any medical attention that resulted from the attack would have generated paper work. There is absolutely no record of anything happening so it is an obvious lie. I want those men to spend some quality time with Ibiki-san. If they are not in his care within the next hour you will take their place."

The shinobi shuddered at the thought of spending time under Ibiki's care.

"Of course, Hokage-sama. It will be as you say."

The shinobi quickly sent a mental apology to the two chunin he was going to pick up before leaving in a plume of smoke. He knew that their story was too wild to believe and he hated to punish the two men but it was better them than him.

The Hokage turned to his ANBU bodyguards. "Leave me for now. No one disturbs me unless there is at least an A-class emergency."

The only response he got was a nod as his body guard left the room. Sarutobi activated a seal on his desk to make sure that no one could eavesdrop on his thoughts and turned to face the painting of the Yondaime Hokage hanging behind him.

"How did it come to this? You wanted your son to be treated as a hero but the villagers just drove him out. What would you do if you were still here?"

Sarutobi sighed to himself and shook his head. He knew exactly what his late successor would have thought. The Yondaime had loved the village with all his heart but he had loved his family even more.

"I must make things right again. When we find him I will make sure that he is cared for personally. I won't leave his well being to my ANBU or the civilian council." Sarutobi promised.

"But first, we have to find you." Sarutobi took a piece of paper and a pen and began writing order.

"Let's see, ANBU units sweeping the city in case he returns, all ninja squads ordered to look out for him and a return on sight order." He paused for a moment.

"That might not actually be the best idea. If he finds somewhere that treats him well he won't want to be taken back. Hmmm. Then just an information gathering side mission unless he is in danger when found. Maybe a money reward will make sure I actually get results and a punishment for any lies. Yes, that will work."

He put down his pen but hesitated to send the orders out. Finally he picked up his pen and started on a new sheet of paper. "Send a message to Jiraiya as well. He'll be a great help on the search."

Finally the Hokage put the orders in his out box and moved to call in his secretary.

'I'm sorry Naruto. I just hope that you are alright until we can find you.'

_ Scene Break _

A forgotten room in a forgotten base ,Konohagakure, At the same time

"Report!" snapped Danzo.

The Root agent began speaking in a dull monotone. "We have investigated as per your orders and know that the Kyuubi has definitely left Konoha. We are unsure why but believe it to be because of a meeting between the Kumo delegation and the boy."

"So they took out weapon?" Danzo growled.

"It is possible but not likely." The Root agent replied. "Root forces followed the Kumo delegation during their stay in Konoha and on their journey until they left Hi no Kuni. There was no contact except for the initial meeting between the delegation and the boy."

"Then why do you think the Kumo delegation is involved?"

"The boy left the same day that the delegation did. It is believed that he latched onto them when they showed him kindness and he decided to follow them when they left. Sources indicate that he left from the wrong gate, which we believe to be a misdirection, either on his part or on wrong information given to him by villagers."

Danzo frowned. "Do we know where the boy actually is at this time?"

The Root agent bowed his head. "No Danzo-sama. He had proven in the past to be quite adept at hiding and we never had a full time watch on him because he already had an ANBU guard and the risk of being found was to great. The best we can tell is he ran into some bandits outside of the city."

"Was he killed or just taken as a slave?"

"As far as we can tell neither. Their bodies destroyed by a Katon technique but that is standard operating procedure for any bodies found by patrols. Their camp was unused so we know that all the bandits were killed and the boys body was not found. He either escaped or was rescued but we have no other information."

Danzo was silent for a moment as he gathered his thoughts. "This may be a blessing in disguise. The boy was always to dangerous without proper training so it is better that he is outside until then. I want all Root agents with missions outside the village to look for him. If he is found, he is to be captured and brought back for training."

The Root agent bowed and left the room to relay the orders to the other Root agents.

Danzo sat back in his chair. After a moment he smiled as he finished thinking through the consequences of this occurrence.

"Yes, this will do nicely indeed. If I find him, I can train him without Sarutobi's interference. If I can't find him, he won't be a danger to the village, and if he is in another village I have grounds to demand a war. This will be perfect."

While Danzo had not expected Naruto to run away he knew that he could make the best out of this situation. Danzo silently thanked the villagers for making the boy's life so hard, it made indoctrinating him into Root that much easier. Then he turned back to the present and faces the Root agent across the desk from him.

"Report!"

_ Scene Break _

The Raikage's Tower, Kumogakure

"Well?" A asked.

C hesitated for a moments before replying. "Well, it's a lot more than we thought it would be."

"Oh?"

"I guess we should start with the physical. Naruto shows classic signs of malnutrition and starvation. The medics agree that it is quite bad but should have been a lot worse. Almost all the damage can be reversed because it's still early but he may never reach his full height."

A nodded his head, the news was not unexpected. He motioned for C to continue.

"The tests also showed that the reason he is so well off is indeed because he has a Kekkei Genkai."

At this A perked up. Again this was not exactly unexpected but it was welcome news no the less. "This is confirmed?"

C nodded his head. "Indeed. He definitely has the Uzumaki Kekkei Genkai. We searched the records and found out that the kekkei genkai involves increased longevity, massive chakra reserves, increased healing, a strong water affinity and something called chakra chains."

A raised an eyebrow at this. "It sounds like an extremely powerful bloodline."

C nodded his head again. "It is, and Naruto has an extremely powerful form of the bloodline. Based on our projections Naruto, may have a lifespan of about four hundred years."

A lost his composure for the first time in the conversation. His eyes widened and he began spluttering. "F. Fou. FOUR HUNDRED YEARS!"

C nodded his head. He had been just as shocked when he had read the predictions. "Part of the Kekkei Genkai is the ability to quickly and efficiently heal injuries. This apparently included age to a large degree. Based on his healing factor four hundred years may actually be conservative."

A shook his head slowly in disbelief. "Four hundred years. That's ridiculous."

C smirked to himself. While the news was impressive it was not nearly as shocking as some of the other things they had found.

"What is really ridiculous is his healing factor. During testing we gave him a cut to the arm that would have taken a week to heal on its own. It was gone in under three hours."

A smiled at this news, longevity was a great power but only in the long term as the longevity brought experience. Advanced healing, however, was useful to any shinobi.

"As I mentioned before he also has extremely large chakra reserves, enough that he currently has more that some Jonin. Part of that is from his bloodline like I thought and part of that is from the surprise we found."

A frowned and motioned for C to elaborate but C just continued with his report.

"His water affinity is actually strong enough that he was able to learn a water jutsu in just one hour. It was only an E-rank jutsu and someone with no water affinity could learn it in well under a day but it is still impressive, especially with no prior training"

"And the chakra chains?"

C frowned but continued his report. "Unknown. Our records just state that part of the Kekkei Genkai is chakra chains but there is no explanation and Naruto has no idea what it could mean.

A nodded slowly before smiling. "While it is unfortunate that we don't know about the chakra chains it is still an impressive Kekkei Genkai. I think I will have to give your team a bonus for finding him."

"Thank you Raikage-sama, I know I won't turn down a bonus." Seeing the Raikage's smile fade away C continued with his report.

"We had the in depth tests Kenji wanted done and as far as we can tell Naruto is clean. No results showed anything that would indicate he is a sleeper agent. The most we found was the beginnings of a shadow personality that was forming to deal with the negativity he faced in Kumo."

"Shadow personality? Would it stop him from becoming a shinobi?"

"No. Even if the shadow personality was completely formed, he would still be able to be a shinobi. As it is, it is unformed and will most likely fade away with time and kindness."

A nodded his head. He really wanted Naruto as a shinobi and he was glad that nothing would prevent him from getting his wish.

C looked down at the report for a moment. As he looked up a wicked smirk formed on his face. When A saw the smirk he knew that he would finally learn what the surprise was and that it would be shocking.

"During the medical exam we checked for any seals as Kenji asked. At first we didn't find anything but later, when he channeled chakra to learn the water jutsu, a seal appeared on his stomach."

C was tempted to draw out the suspense but he saw that A was getting impatient. C decided against pushing his luck and skipped a lot of the build up he had planned to use.

"We had out fuinjutsu masters look over the seal. It is hopelessly complex and they can only barely begin to understand it but from what they can tell it is a Bijuu containment seal."

A blinked for a moment before that statement sunk in. When it did he stood up so suddenly that his desk went flying.

"WHAT!?"

C ducked his head to avoid the desk and quickly answered.

"The fuinjutsu masters think it is a highly advanced containment seal designed to hold a powerful Bijuu. It's even more powerful that B's seal. Based on the complexity of the seal, the area Naruto is from and the age of the seal, we believe that Naruto is the Jinchuriki of the Kyuubi no Kitsune."

A fell back into the chair as if the strength had suddenly left his legs. After a moment he raised his hand and began rubbing his eyes tiredly. C remained silent, he had not expected the Raikage to react so badly to the news.

Finally A let out a sigh and dropped his hand.

"Is it possible that this is a mistake?"

"No Raikage-sama, at least not really. The seal is a containment seal designed to hold massive amounts of demonic chakra. Unless he contains another bijuu or demon that no one has heard of, he most likely contains the kyuubi."

A suddenly became more animated. He stood up again and began to pace around the room, muttering under his breath. C righted the desk that A had thrown earlier and began picking up the papers that had been on the desk.

The Raikage broke the silence so suddenly that C froze.

"Who else knows about this?"

C gave a quick shake of his head to get himself back in motion and answered the Raikage.

"Just the fuinjutsu master, the head doctor, B and myself."

"B?"

"Yes, when the fuinjutsu master discovered the seal he called in B to try to see if he could sense the bijuu inside. He ended up being unable to because the seal is so tight no recognizable chakra is being released."

A fixed his gaze on C with such intensity that C began to get uncomfortable.

"Does that mean Naruto will be unable to act as Jinchuriki?"

"The fuinjutsu masters think that the seal will loosen up when he is older and more able to handle demonic chakra. They are unsure if it will continue to loosen to the point that it will unravel or if it will stop at any point."

"Is this a risk to the village? Will I have to worry about the bijuu breaking free from the seal and going on a rampage?"

C quickly shook his head and waved his hands.

"No. No. Nothing like that. They said that even if it continues to unravel to the point the seal will fail it would take nearly eighty years to become a danger. There is plenty of time to figure out a solution if it is even a problem."

A nodded his head and let out a small sound of relief. He would not have liked to banish Naruto, especially with all the information he had given them, but he would have if Naruto was a danger to the village.

A smiled as he realized just what this news meant for Kumo.

"This is excellent news. With three jinchurikis, two of which hold the most power of the bijuus, Kumo will rise to be the strongest hidden village in no time at all."

After a moment his smile faded and he became a little more serious. "Does Naruto know about the bijuu he carries?"

C also let out a sigh of relief. He knew that A would have done anything to protect the village and he was glad that, at least in this case, nothing would happen.

"A little. He didn't know anything about it until the fuinjutsu master started poking around. He overheard a little about jinchurikis and bijuus before I moved the conversation to a different room and he can probably piece things together."

The Raikage nodded his head. "Alright. Here are my new orders. First, when you leave here I want you to bring Naruto and B to my office. It will be better if he knows about the bijuu inside of him now."

C nodded his head to show that he understood.

"Then, when you have got them, I want you to go to the doctor and the fuinjutsu master and tell them to keep Naruto's bijuu quite. If Konoha finds out we took their jinchuriki they might kick up a fuss and I don't want to start a war, at least until Naruto masters his biju's power."

"Hai, Raikage-sama. Your will be done." Exclaimed C before he disappeared, leaving only a fading after image in his place.

A shuffled his papers around, grateful that C had cleaned up after his outburst and waited for his orders to be carried out.

He didn't have to wait long, ten minutes after C departed Naruto and B walked into his office.

A took a deep breath and put on a smile. He wasn't quite sure how to tell a child that they had a demon sealed inside of them but he was fairly sure that being less intimidating would help.

B noticed the effort that A was putting into his smile and realized what the conversation would be about. He grimaced but nodded to his brother to tell him that he understood and would help.

A turned to Naruto. After a moment to gather his thoughts he began his explanation.

"I'm sure that you are wondering why I called you here."

Naruto thought for a moment before replying.

"I guess it has something to do with the tests the doctor did today."

A nodded his head. C was right, Naruto was quite intelligent.

"That's right. I want to start by saying that nothing is wrong. You can still stay in Kumo and you can still become a shinobi when you're old enough."

Naruto let out a sigh of relief. With his two biggest concerns out of the way he could relax.

"If nothing is wrong with me then it has to do with the seal that's on my stomach. Right?"

A blinked in surprise but nodded his head again.

"Correct. That seal is extremely special. In fact, there are only nine people with similar seals in the entire elemental nations."

Naruto's face scrunched up in thought. After a moment he asked a tentative question.

"Does this have anything to do with the jinchuriki everyone was talking about?"

A frowned for a moment before replying.

"Yes. Yes it does. To understand what a jinchuriki is, you first need to know what a bijuu is. To put it simply, a bijuu is a massive construct made of pure chakra in the shape of an animal. These beings are enormously powerful and usually filled with rage."

B decided to cut in and add a few more details.

"Bijuu are ranked by the number of tails they have. The more tails the stronger they are. Despite that, even the weakest one, the Ichibi, is stronger than any shinobi. They are walking forces of nature."

A continued with his explanation.

"Bijuu are incredibly dangerous and can cause massive amounts of damage in very short periods of time. The bijuu were so powerful and dangerous that they couldn't be killed or even defeated with regular ninjutsu so instead people began to use fuinjutsu to make sure that they couldn't harm anyone."

Naruto' eyes widened and he looked at his stomach again.

"Fuinjutsu? Does that mean that there is a bijuu in my stomach?"

A paused for a moment in thought.

"It is a bit more complicated than that, but essentially yes. The more tails a bijuu has, the harder it is to seal. Bijuu with many tails are too strong to be stored in objects and instead must be stored in humans. Those humans are called jinchuriki."

Naruto stared at his stomach in fascination and awe. After a moment A realized that he would get no reply and continued with what he wanted to say.

"Jinchuriki often become extremely powerful shinobi. The bijuu inside them gives them advantages that other people do not. On top of that, if you are strong enough, you can eventually gain access to the biju's power and use it as your own."

Naruto started to bounce up and down but quickly stilled himself. He was excited but he knew that shinobi did not bounce up and down when they were excited.

"That's awesome! Which bijuu do I have!? What special powers do I get!?"

A laughed in relief. He had been worried that the kid would not take the news well but it seemed his fears were unfounded.

"You hold the Kyuubi no Kitsune, the last and most powerful of the bijuu. Unfortunately we don't know what powers you will get from your bijuu, we don't know any jinchuriki who have used the Kyuubi's power in the past. When you are older and can access the Kyuubi's chakra we can find out."

"That's so cool. I'll be a really powerful and unique shinobi. I'll even be able to make my own techniques."

A let Naruto celebrate for a few moments. Then he made a motion to tell Naruto to calm down. After a moment he did and the Raikage continued.

"I know that you're excited, and you have every right to be, but you have to keep your bijuu a secret."

"What? Why? Isn't being a jinchuriki a good thing?"

A paused for a moment before deciding to go on a small tangent.

"It is in Kumo."

"What do you mean? Why wouldn't it be elsewhere?"

"Most people don't understand fuinjutsu. They can't believe that a little ink can hold back powerful creatures like bijuu. That makes them nervous and scared. When people are scared they often do bad things and a jinchuriki's life can be difficult."

Naruto's eyes widened in understanding.

"You mean the villagers? They were so mean to me because I was a jinchuriki?"

A grimaced but nodded.

"Yes. I believe so. Happily though, here in Kumo we are more used to jinchuriki. People might be a little wary around you but they won't harm or belittle you."

"They might even end up honoring you if you can gain full control over your bijuu. A jinchuriki with full control over their bijuu is a powerful force for any hidden village." B added to the conversation."

Naruto's face had fallen when he heard that jinchuriki were treated badly but when he heard B's encouragement his head snapped up.

"Alright then! I will master my biju's power and become the most powerful shinobi in Kumogakure. I won't fail."

A smiled at that declaration. Naruto was so full of enthusiasm and confidence that it was hard to imagine him failing.

"I'm glad to hear that. Now then, I think we got a little off topic. The reason I want you to keep quiet about your bijuu is not because of the villagers of Kumo, it's because of the other hidden villages."

"Huh? Why would they matter?"

A snorted in amusement before answering.

"Like I said before, jinchuriki are extremely powerful. If other villages knew that we had another jinchuriki they might decide to attack before you can learn to use your biju's power to defend the village. Even if they don't attack, they might send assassin's or people to capture you so you can't strengthen our village."

A let that sink in for a moment. He was glad to see that Naruto didn't look scared, instead he looked determined and a little angry.

'I will master my biju's power really quickly. No one is going to damage my new home'

"I have already sent orders to those who know that you are a jinchuriki to keep quite. You are not to tell anyone about it unless they already know or I give you permission to tell them. Do you understand?"

"Yes Raikage-sama, I can only talk about my bijuu with people you say I can and people who already know." Naruto paused for a moment, his face a picture of indecision. "Umm. Raikage-sama? Can I get permission to tell Mabui-Chan about my bijuu?"

The Raikage raised an eyebrow but nodded his head.

"I think that would be alright. I was planning to have Mabui-san become my secretary so I am confident she can keep a secret."

Naruto jumped up in excitement before catching himself and sitting again.

"That's great!"

The Raikage chuckled a little before continuing with his orders.

"There is one other new person who you can talk about your bijuu with. There is a girl named Yugito Nii. If you meet her you can tell her about you bijuu."

"Umm, why?"

"You can talk to Yugito because she is the same as you."

Naruto's face scrunched up in thought again. After a few moments his eyes widened and he gasped.

"Does that mean that Yugito...?"

A nodded his head again.

"Yes. Yugito is one of the Jinchuriki we have in Kumo. She holds the Nibi no Neko and can help answer questions you might have. I'm sure that Mabui or B will be happy to introduce you to her."

Naruto smiled at the possibility of making new friend. B decided to jump into the discussion again.

"You can also come to me if you have any questions about being a jinchuriki, I'm Kumo's other jinchuriki. I hold the Hachibi and have full control over his chakra."

Naruto looked up at B with hero worship in his eyes.

"Really? You have full control over your bijuu? That's amazing! Can you help me get control over the Kyuubi?"

B reached out and ruffled Naruto's hair.

"Of course I can. I'll help you master your bijuu when you're old enough to handle its power. Of course that can take some time but until then I'll help you get stronger."

Naruto jumped up again in joy but this time didn't immediately force himself to sit down again.

"All right! That's awesome! I'll get super strong and master using the Kyuubi's power really fast now!"

A and B both chuckled at his enthusiasm. Finally the Raikage spoke again.

"Alright. I know that I gave you a lot to think about so I'll let you go. Just remember to keep your bijuu a secret."

Naruto tried to give the salute that he had seen other shinobi give when acknowledging orders.

"Right! No problem Raikage-sama. I won't let you down!"

A waved his hand and let the two leave his office. He was glad that Naruto had taken the news so well. Maybe he wasn't so bad with kids after all.

A glanced down at the stacks of papers on his desk. He grimaced because he realized that he was now behind schedule. Kami, he hated paperwork. He couldn't wait to make Mabui his secretary, then she would take care of this paperwork for him.

_ Scene Break _

Naruto ran home as fast as he could. He darted in between people, weaving through the crowd as fast as his legs could carry him. He was so excited about the fact that he was a jinchuriki that he felt that he needed to run or else he would explode.

When he had been called into the Raikage's office earlier, he had thought that his good luck had finally run out and that he would be sent back to Konoha. Instead he had been told that they knew why people hated him and that not only that they did not care, but that he was important because of it. He finally allowed himself to believe that this was not a dream or temporary vacation and that he actually had a new life.

Finally, Naruto broke free from the crowds and sprinted into his building. He ran up the steps, fumbled around in his pocket for his key and and opened his door. He walked into his apartment and allowed himself to relax.

The room he saw was empty and bare. To many, it would seem to be ugly or plain. To Naruto, the room seemed to be the greatest place on the planet because it was his home.

The room had plain white walls, and unpolished wooden floor and no furniture to be seen. He had not gotten anything for it yet because he just couldn't believe that he would actually live here permanently and he was used to worse.

Now, however, that he allowed himself to actually believe that this would be his home, he decided to change that. Naruto sped through his apartment, checking each room to make sure that he knew exactly what he needed and where it would go.

When he was done, he left the apartment and raced down the hall to Mabui's apartment. He paused in front of her door and took a moment to calm himself. He knew that Mabui could get annoyed when he was really hyper and he didn't want to annoy his first friend.

After a minute of deep breathing he allowed himself to knock on her door. Even with his newly calmed state Naruto fidgeted with excitement as he waited for Mabui to open her door.

After what felt like an eternity to Naruto, but was actually closer to two minutes, Mabui opened the door. She glanced down at Naruto and smiled at just how excited he looked.

"Hello Naruto-kun. What brings you here?"

"Hi Mabui-chan. I just got back from the Raikage's office and I have great news!"

Mabui allowed herself to have a small laugh at his enthusiasm.

"Oh? And just what is this great news?"

Naruto's face scrunched up in concentration for a moment.

"It's a secret. I'm only allowed to tell the people the Raikage lets me tell."

Mabui raised an eyebrow and Naruto hastened to reassure her.

"Don't worry though. I asked the Raikage and he let me tell you. We just have to go where no one can hear us."

At this Mabui raised her other eyebrow but invited Naruto in. She closed her door and activated a sealing array that was inset in the door jam. After a quick check to make sure it was working correctly she turned to Naruto again.

"Alright, we have complete privacy now. No one can over hear us so you can tell me your big secret." she said playfully.

Naruto nodded his head as seriously as he could. Unfortunately he was six and couldn't completely pull of a serious look.

"I had my medical exam today. The doctor said that I definitely have a kekkei genkai. They even taught me a water jutsu because my kekkei genkai is supposed to come with a affinity for water."

Mabui blinked in surprise. Learning an elemental jutsu was an incredible feat for a six year old with no prior training. His elemental affinity had to be ridiculously strong.

"Really? That's great! What did you learn?"

Naruto beamed at the praise Mabui gave him. "It was one of the ones that I brought with the jutsu scrolls. It's called Water release: Water Purification Jutsu and it's used to make dirty water clean to drink."

"That's amazing! You'll make a great shinobi for sure! And don't worry, i won't tell anyone about your secret." Mabui promised.

Naruto shook his head and quickly corrected her.

"Oh, no, that's not the secret. That's just something that happened that I thought was really cool. The secret was after that when the doctor was checking me out for seals they found something."

Mabui quickly became concerned but tried to hide it. Seals were always tricky and she knew that they could be quite dangerous.

"Really? What did they find?"

Naruto glanced around again, as if looking for spies in her living room. He leaned forward and whispered his next statement.

"They found I have the Kyuubi no Kitsune sealed in my stomach. Isn't it great!"

Mabui froze as she tried to process what he just said.

"What?"

Now that he had told his secret to Mabui, Naruto started becoming more excited.

"They found that I'm a Jinchuriki!"

"And how is that great news!?" she choked out.

Naruto looked at her strangely, his earlier enthusiasm dulled by her own lack of enthusiasm.

"It's great because that means when I gain control of my biju's power, I'll become a really powerful shinobi. Also, I found out that there are other Jinchuriki here. B promised to help me gain control of the Kyuubi's power when I get older and to introduce me to Yugito. I just know we will be great friends!"

Mabui was still quite shocked by the news that Naruto had just given her. She wanted to tell him that being a Jinchuriki was not easy or safe but as she looked at him she just couldn't bring herself to do it.

He looked so happy and excited that she couldn't bring herself to do anything that dim his enthusiasm. Finally she just smiled at him.

"That sounds great. I know you'll be a great shinobi, even without being a Jinchuriki. Just remember not to rely on any one power to much, to keep pushing yourself, especially when you think you've reached your limits and to take time to enjoy life."

Naruto looked at her, as solemn as a six year old boy can be.

"Alright, Mabui-chan, I will remember what you've told me. I'll become a great shinobi, I won't let you down!"

She smiled and reached out to ruffle his hair. He squirmed uncomfortably and she laughed.

"Alright, now that you've told me your secret, let's go out a do something."

Naruto stopped his squirming and brightened up.

"Oh, I almost forgot. I wanted to ask for your help getting some things for my apartment. I have all the money the Raikage gave me and I need some furniture and stuff."

Mabui smiled at Naruto. "And what stuff do you need?"

Not knowing the suffering that his next words would cause, Naruto answered her question happily.

"Well, if I want to be the best shinobi ever I need to get started. So other than furniture and food I need to get things like kunai and shuriken. I guess I also need some new clothing..."

He trailed off as he saw Mabui smile. For some reason that smile made him more scared than he had been when he had fought the bandits.

"Clothing? I think ! can handle that." Mabui reached out and grabbed Naruto's hand.

He followed after her, a small part of him regretting asking her. After a moment he pushed that a part of him away. After all, Mabui-chan was fun, and how bad could shopping be anyway.


	3. Meetings

**I am back with yet another chapter of A Kumo took a bit of time to upload due to me having tons of tests but now i'm done with them so it'll be easier to update. Now on with the story.**

Disclaimer: I do not own the Naruto franchise nor do I make any money off of my work. This is done entirely for fun.

Wow, managed to finish another one. It was way harder than I had hoped it would be. I've decided to set myself a due date to help motivate myself. From now on, I will update by the 15th of every month. I hope that helps.

I want to thank everyone for catching the "Kono" slip. I have since changed it and corrected it for all the previous chapters. I'm sorry if the typo lessened anyones enjoyment of the chapter.

I want to thank everyone for liking, favoriting, or commenting. I never expected for anyone to read this let alone like it and your support just makes my day a little better.

Naruto was frustrated. This was a fairly new sensation for him, or rather an old one. He had often been frustrated in the orphanage when he was treated unfairly by the matrons but when he was thrown out he had not really had time for emotions.

Now, in Kumo, he had time to experience emotions again and he was glad for it. He just wished that frustration was an emotion that had never come back.

Finally he threw the the scroll in his hand on the floor.

"AHHH!" He screamed. "Why won't this work!?"

Naruto took a long moment to try to get himself calm again. He closed his eyes and took deep breaths until his desire to scream faded away. When he was once again calm, he moved over to the scroll that was resting where he threw it.

Naruto leaned down and picked up the scroll. He slowly smoothed out the wrinkles that had formed and looked it over again. He put the scroll on his table and slowly went through the hand signs, making sure that they were as perfect as he could make them.

He felt his chakra moving inside of him, flowing in interesting ways as his hands moved. Finally he reached the last sign and felt his chakra flare. He looked around the room to find that absolutely nothing had changed.

"Gah!"

After a few more deep breaths Naruto felt calm enough to think again. He knew that he was definitely doing something wrong but he had no clue what it was. After another moment of deep contemplation he knew that there was only one thing to do.

Naruto picked up the scroll again, left his apartment and moved down the hall. After only one more minute of hesitation Naruto knocked on the door. The door opened immediately, as if the person inside was waiting for him to show up.

Naruto walked in and looked up at Mabui, his eyes as large and pathetic as he could make them.

"I couldn't do it."

Mabui smiled gently down at him.

"Of course you couldn't do it. It takes quite a bit of time for a person's chakra to develop enough to do jutsu. That's why the academy starts when you're ten, not when you're six."

Naruto shook his head vigorously.

"No, that's not what I meant. I could do that water jutsu that the doctor showed me fine and I can feel my chakra moving when I'm trying to make a clone but it just isn't working."

Mabui blinked in surprise and frowned.

"You mean you can actually feel your chakra moving as you do hand signs?"

Naruto nodded his head.

"Yes. My chakra moves around as I make each hand sign, just like with the water one. It's just that at the end, nothing happens."

Mabui nodded her head slowly as she thought about what he had said. After a minute of thinking she nodded her head as she reached a decision.

"Let me get C here. This is a little over my head. Just wait a minute please."

Naruto went to ask a question but stopped when he realized that Mabui was gone. He shook his head and moved further into the room. He took a seat and decided to pass the time by making hand signs to see just how his chakra moved.

Naruto didn't have to wait long. After only five minutes of making motions, both the hand signs that he knew and random ones to see how his chakra reacted, Mabui and C appeared in the room again.

Naruto got up and C turned towards him.

"Mabui-san tells me that you're trying to learn some jutsu and that you're having trouble. She also tells me that you can feel your chakra moving but that nothing happens."

Naruto nodded his head but decided to to speak. He had nothing to add to what Mabui had already told C. After another moment C realized that Naruto was not going to speak so he decided to continue.

"Uh, alright then. Why don't you just do what you normally do and I'll see if I can find what's wrong."

This time Naruto replied.

"Alright, no problem."

He again went through the hand signs, his concentration so total that he missed the amazed look that formed on C's face. When he reached the end of his hand signs he exclaimed "Clone Jutsu".

Naruto felt his chakra flare once again. He looked around, just as excitedly as when he had tried the technique before, but his face fell as he realized that once again, nothing happened.

Naruto sighed and turned to face C, a look of total helplessness on his face.

"See? My chakra moves around and it gets released but nothing happens! Not even smoke! I've tried it like twenty times and nothing seems to work! What am I doing wrong?"

C stared at Naruto for a moment longer before he managed to compose himself. Finally he answered Naruto, his voice still showing the amazement he felt.

"Uh, wow. Um. I have to say that you got the hand signs correct but that your chakra didn't move quite right to each sign. I also have to say that you put way too much power into the technique. Completely overpowering a technique will also cause it to fail."

Naruto nodded his head as he thought about what he had heard. After a moment he nodded his understanding. Then he turned around and made the signs again.

"Clone Jutsu!"

Naruto glanced around the room excitedly only to once again be met with disappointment. He frowned before letting a look of determination settle on his features.

"Clone Jutsu!"

"Clone Jutsu!"

"Clone Jutsu!"

"Clone Jutsu!"

Finally Naruto reached his limit.

"Ahhh! You have got to be kidding me! That's the smallest amount of chakra I can use! Why isn't anything happening!"

Mabui decided to intervene before Naruto had a chance to get angry.

"Look Naruto, it's alright if you can't do a jutsu on your first try. Most shinobi take months to learn a new jutsu. You have years to practice before you can even think about becoming a shinobi so you have time."

C nodded from his place beside Mabui. He knew that she was trying to keep Naruto from getting discouraged and he agreed with her decision.

"That's right. Besides, I mentioned that power wasn't the only issue that you had with the jutsu, you are also molding your chakra differently than most people so you need to figure that out as well."

Naruto nodded his head dejectedly. He knew that they were more experienced and they knew what the were talking about but he wanted results quickly. He had gotten that water jutsu quickly so he had hoped to get others just as fast.

Finally he straightened up and nodded his head, decisively this time.

"Right! No problem. No matter how much work I have to do I'll get this down. I have to if I want to be the strongest shinobi ever after all."

Mabui sighed in relief, she was glad that the incident hadn't damaged his confidence in himself. She smiled at him and decided to offer her help.

"That's great to hear. Now then, I'm not sure how to go about fixing the way you mold chakra but learning to control your chakra is common enough. I'll teach you an exercise you can do so you can decrease the amount of chakra you use."

Naruto jumped up and down from excitement.

"Wow, really? Awesome! What is it? What do I have to do?"

Mabui laughed to herself and tried to get him to calm down a little.

"Alright, settle down now. You need concentration to do this, at least at first." Once Naruto calmed down enough to pay attention she continued her explanation. "This is the most basic chakra control exercise. It's called the object sticking exercise. What you do is use your chakra to stick an object to your body. The objects start off small and light but get heavier and larger as you get better."

Naruto nodded enthusiastically to show that he had understood her and looked around for something to use for the exercise. Mabui smiled at his drive to learn and handed him a blank scroll from her desk.

"Now then, most people start by sticking things to their foreheads. They use other places to increase the difficulty. Remember that too little chakra means that the scroll falls off and too much chakra causes the scroll to fly away."

Naruto nodded, placed the scroll on his forehead and used the least amount of chakra he could manage. He gently pushed it from his forehead into the scroll.

As soon as his chakra touched the scroll, it exploded from his grip, flew across the room and tore itself to pieces. All three people in the room stared at the destroyed scroll in amazement.

Mabui was the first to react.

"Well. That was too much chakra, I guess this will take awhile to learn."

Naruto nodded his head and accepted another scroll from Mabui.

_ Scene Break _

Naruto frowned in concentration. He placed the piece of shredded scroll on his forehead and gently pushed chakra into piece of paper immediately tore itself from his grasp and blew across the room.

He got up and headed to the pile of destroyed scrolls that rested against the wall he was facing. Before he reached it, however, he was stopped by C's voice.

"This isn't working."

Mabui immediately tried to argue with him.

"What? What do you mean? This takes time. You just..."

"No." C interrupted. "It's not working. Naruto has been trying this same exercise for three hours now and not one change had occurred. I'm not saying a noticeable change, I mean any change at all. That means this exercise is useless."

Naruto's face fell.

"I'm trying the best I can. I just..."

This time C interrupted Naruto.

"Relax. I know you're trying as hard as you can, in fact most people would have taken a break an hour ago. It's not your fault your not getting the exercise, it's just impossible for you right now."

Mabui frowned and went to argue with C's opinion. C noticed her open her mouth so he quickly continued.

"What I mean is that this exercise simply uses too little chakra to teach you anything. You have so much chakra that you completely overpower the technique and get nothing from it."

Naruto looked downcast, how was he supposed to be a great shinobi if he couldn't use any jutsu. C saw how depressed Naruto was getting and he hastened to relieve his worry.

"That means we need to come back to this exercise later, when you have better control. To get that control we just have to start you on a different exercise, one that uses more chakra."

Mabui slowly nodded her head.

"I guess I can see your point. If he can't do object sticking exercise we can start him on wall walking. It uses a lot more chakra so he will have better success with it."

C shook his head in disagreement. "No, I don't think that would help either."

Mabui blinked in surprise. "What? Why?"

C pursed his lips for a moment, thinking deeply on how best to describe his thoughts, before he relaxed and began an explanation.

"The wall walking exercise does use more chakra but it also requires more finesse than Naruto has right now. That finesse is usually gained by doing smaller exercises like the one before. No, what we need is a chakra control exercise that uses a lot of power with little finesse right now. We can go back and work on finesse once he can control the amount of chakra he uses."

Mabui nodded her head slowly in response.

I guess that makes sense." She paused before continuing more confidently. "Alright. I just know the basic control exercises so I guess we will have to do research or make one up."

C smiled at her reply.

"No we won't, I have just the technique that will help."

He turned to Naruto to continue his explanation.

"Most chakra control exercises focus on allowing a shinobi use minimal amounts of chakra for jutsu or increasing the control they have over their chakra so they don't waste chakra when they use is useful for most ordinary shinobi and ordinary techniques. That being said, some techniques only get stronger when overpowered and those kinds of chakra control exercises leave a shinobi ill prepared to use them."

Naruto nodded to show that he understood what he was being told.

"To help train shinobi to utilize large amount of chakra, there are other techniques, ones that use a lot of power with little control, at least at first. I think we will start you on one of the most advanced and work your way down until you can control your chakra enough to do the delicate work."

Naruto pumped his fist into the air. He was so excited that he would be able to learn to control his chakra.

"Alright! I'll work on this until I master my chakra. Then I'll learn all the techniques I can until I become the most powerful shinobi in the world!"

C smiled and began explaining the exercise.

"This technique is called the chakra bubble. It works on the principle of chakra repulsion."

Seeing Naruto's confused expression, Mabui jumped in to explain a little about chakra.

"You see, Naruto-kun, chakra is a strange force that no one really understands. What we do know is that in its most pure form we can use outside of our bodies, that's what we use in chakra control exercises, chakra has a push-pull nature. That means that up until a certain point chakra pulls thing to it. After that point, chakra pushes things away from it."

"Right. Most of the exercises we mentioned before used the before point to pull things to you or you to things. This exercise is based on that after point to push you away from things and things away from you."

Naruto took a moment to absorb the information about chakra. That seemed like it could be useful late. Finally he nodded his head to indicate that C could continue.

"Now this exercise in its final form creates a bubble of chakra around you that pushes everything away from you, including the ground, until you can float with without damaging the ground."

Mabui turned her head sharply to face C.

"What? That technique has to be ridiculously complicated and has to require much more finesse than wall walking. You can't expect Naruto-kun to learn this technique with no prior training."

C waved away her concerns.

"Now, now. I wouldn't have brought it up if I didn't have a plan. Just listen."

Mabui nodded her head guardedly. She didn't want C to get Naruto's hopes up with an impossible dream.

"You are right to say that the technique is impossible to learn with no prior training. That being said, there are a few steps that someone has to do before they get up to completing the technique that will be perfect for Naruto-kun. Once he can finish the steps he can right now, he can move to a lower level exercise and complete the chakra bubble later."

Naruto decided to jump into the conversation. He didn't like that Mabui didn't think he could learn this technique.

"I'll learn the chakra bubble in no time at all. I'll even master the technique before I join the academy. That's my promise."

Mabui and C smiled at Naruto's enthusiasm and childlike confidence.

"All right then. When we get to the point that I feel we can move on to another exercise, I will tell you how to continue this exercise. Just don't focus on the chakra bubble to the exclusion of your other techniques."

Naruto nodded solemnly and promised to not get distracted.

"You also have to promise to follow the rules I give you about learning this technique. It uses a lot of chakra so it can be very dangerous."

"Alright. I'll be careful."

"Good. Now, the first rule is to always practice this technique outside. It can be very destructive, especially in its initial stages, and you don't want to damage any buildings. I'll show you a place you can go to practice."

"I understand C-san"

"The second rule is that your are not to practice this technique for more than four hours a day. This must be in blocks of at most two hours at a time with at least a three hour break in between. This technique uses a lot of chakra and if you're not careful you can get chakra exhaustion which is dangerous."

Naruto frowned in disappointment at not getting to practice constantly but nodded his agreement.

"The final rule is that you are not to show anyone how to do this technique. If anyone tries it without properly knowing what can happen and without proper instruction, it can be quite dangerous."

When Naruto finished giving his agreement for the third time, C began to explain the actual technique.

"The chakra bubble is very complex. To finish the technique you would have to release the exact same amount of chakra out of every tenketsu on your body simultaneously, then use shape transformation to shape the chakra into a bubble and push enough chakra into the technique to levitate while keeping enough control to keep from damaging the area under you."

Naruto's eyes got huge as he listened to what he had to do. He didn't understand everything but it sounded complex and difficult.

"Like I said earlier, this technique has many steps to getting that far. The one we'll start with is actually the levitating. To do this you have to push chakra out from your feet until you can stand on your chakra like it was the earth. Don't worry about damaging the ground or how high you end up when you're stable, that's for later, you just need to get stable first."

Naruto grinned with joy, flying, or at least levitating, sounded awesome. His excitement was cut short when Mabui decided to cut in.

"That sounds really dangerous, especially because Naruto-kun doesn't have have any control and has massive amounts of chakra. He could blast himself high in the air and get hurt by the fall."

C had anticipated her objection and had a reply ready.

"I plan to have him practice on training ground seventy-six." Seeing Naruto's confusion, C decided to elaborate. "Training ground seventy-six is primarily used for learning to enhance your muscles with chakra. While learning it is possible to enhance your muscles to the point that you can seriously hurt yourself by moving incorrectly. That training ground had a special seal to stop dangerous movement safely."

Naruto nodded excitedly once again. He jumped up and made to run to the door.

"Alright! Let's get going! The sooner I learn this the sooner I can become a powerful shinobi!"

Mabui chuckled to herself but stopped him from leaving.

"Just one minute Naruto-kun. I have a few more things I want to talk to you about before C shows you this technique."

Naruto pouted in disappointment but sat down.

"Aww. What is it? I want to learn how to levitate."

C snorted in amusement but Mabui ignored him and put on a serious expression.

"I realize that you want to become a powerful shinobi, the most powerful shinobi in the world in fact, and I want to help you achieve your dream. That being said, I also want you to train as safely as you can so I want to go over some rules you have to follow while training."

Naruto nodded his head, trying to be as serious as he could be. No one had ever cared about his safety before and it felt nice to be wanted.

"Now, the first and probably most important rule is that you are not allowed to do physical conditioning."

"What!? Why!? How will I become a powerful shinobi if I can't train?"

"Naruto-kun, calm down. I'm not saying that you can never train, in fact you will definitely have to train as you get older. I'm just saying that you can't train until you get older."

Naruto frowned as he asked his question again. "But, why?"

Mabui sighed at his expression. She knew that if she didn't explain herself to his satisfaction he would go off and try to train by himself. She didn't want that, he could get seriously hurt.

"Listen Naruto-kun, the body of a child is constantly growing and changing as you get older and are exposed to different stresses. This means that if you put too much strain on your body you could seriously damage yourself."

Naruto frowned, clearly not agreeing with what she was saying so she continued her explanation.

"Physical conditioning is all about putting strain on your body and letting it heal. That kind of strain could seriously hurt you until you get older. At the very least it would stunt your growth."

Naruto nodded his head very slowly.

"So when does it get safe for me to start training?"

Mabui frowned in thought and glanced at C. He thought for a moment before answering Naruto's question.

"I'll answer that one Naruto-kun. As a shinobi with medical training I know a lot about the human body. Generally, the best time to do physical conditioning safely is after your body hits its maturity. Around the age of twelve or thirteen I would guess."

"But that's so long." Naruto whined. "How am I supposed to be a shinobi if I can't train until I'm twelve?"

Mabui sighed at his stubbornness and decided to compromise a little before he decided to ignore their warning.

"You can do some exercises, just not the amount that most shinobi do. Too much exercise in too short a period of time is what causes the damage I'm worried about. You have to work your way up gradually, at least until your body starts to mature, then you can really start physically training."

C threw in some more support to make sure that Naruto would follow their advice.

"Besides, you already have so much to do that you wouldn't be able to really focus on physical conditioning."

Naruto blinked in surprise. "Really? What do I have to do?"

C smirked inwardly as he caught Naruto's attention. It looked like the they had gotten through to Naruto after all.

"Well, first you have to work on chakra control. That will take a lot of time. Then you need to fix your problem moulding chakra. After you finish that you can start to learn ninjutsu and genjutsu. They use chakra so you can do as much training as you want."

Mabui quickly continued before Naruto could protest that it wasn't enough.

"You also need to learn the skills shinobi need to survive. Things like first aid, wilderness survival, stealth, and strategy. If that isn't enough you have to learn how to throw kunai, shuriken and senbon, how to identify, use and counter poisons and how to make, detect and disarm traps."

Naruto's eyes grew wider and wider as the two shinobi added more topics he would need to learn. C started to smirk outwardly as he threw out a few more topics.

"And on top of all that you can start to learning a taijutsu, a kenjutsu and/or a bukijutsu style. You can learn the forms, how to use the weapons and get some muscle memory before you start physical conditioning to make yourself faster and stronger."

Mabui also saw how big Naruto's eyes were getting and decided to make sure that he was far too busy learning to worry about intense physical conditioning.

"If you're really good you can also learn things like nature transformation, shape transformation, chakra flow techniques, fuinjutsu, how to use your bijuu's power, how to use your kekkei genkai and possibly start making your own techniques to use."

Naruto's eyes were so wide that C thought for a moment that they would fall out of his head.

"Whoa! That's a lot of stuff. I have to learn all that before I can become a proper shinobi?" Naruto asked nervously.

Mabui chuckled and began to ease Naruto's worry.

"No, no. You don't have to learn all that to be a shinobi. That's just the kinds of things that you need to learn to be the strongest shinobi in the world. We'll start you off slowly and add more as you show you can handle it."

Naruto sighed in relief. "So, what are we going to start with?"

C's chuckle gained Naruto's attention once again.

"Have you forgotten already? We were just about to start your chakra control lessons. Most of the things on the list are difficult or impossible to do with poor chakra control."

Naruto nodded sheepishly. He had forgotten about what they were doing, first in his disappointment at being told he couldn't train and then at his worry about how much he would have to learn.

"You can also start learning some shinobi skills like first-aid, trap making and wilderness survival while you have to rest." Mabui added. "I will lend you some scrolls you should read. You can learn a lot from them and they will get you ready for practical lessons in each subject."

When Naruto nodded his understanding Mabui continued with her previous topic.

"Now then, before we were interrupted I was telling you the rules I expect you to follow while training."

Naruto looked down sheepishly. He knew that it was his outburst that had caused her to stop her list of rules and kept him from training for even longer. Before he could apologize Mabui spoke again.

"Don't worry about it Naruto-kun. Just remember and follow the rules. Alright?"

"Alright Mabui-chan. I know you're just looking out for me so I'll do as you ask."

"That's good Naruto-kun. Like I said before, the first rule is that you're not allowed to follow a shinobi physical training regime until you're older. The second rule is that you're to follow any and all instructions we give you about an exercise. Limits like the one C gave you for the chakra bubble exercise are supposed to keep you safe so make sure you follow them."

"I will follow your instructions Mabui-chan, C-san, don't worry."

"Good. The third rule is that you have to take care of yourself while training. That means no skipping meals, staying up all night, or pushing yourself to the point that you could hurt yourself. You need to be in top condition or you could hurt yourself badly."

"I understand Mabui-chan."

"I mean it Naruto-kun. You also have to take breaks from all training to just be a child, not just taking breaks to study shinobi skills in between chakra exercises and your physical training."

"But, why?" Naruto pouted. "I want to learn to be a shinobi as fast as possible. Why do I need to stop training to just do nothing?"

"Naruto, this is very serious." C answered Naruto's question, his face as serious as Naruto had ever seen it before. "Being a shinobi is a dangerous profession. Death will be a constant companion, you will have to deal with the darkest parts of humanity, and you will see and possibly do many terrible things. Shinobi who don't have some kind of coping mechanism will break under the strain they are placed under. Taking time to just be a kid will help you later, when you are an actual shinobi yourself."

Naruto nodded hesitantly. He remembered how he felt when he had killed that bandit from before and realized that he would have to kill again. He suddenly felt a little better about taking time to just be a child.

"Alright C-san. I understand and will make sure to take breaks when I can get them."

C nodded his head, sad that he had to reveal such a harsh truth to the young boy but pleased that Naruto remained resolute and that Naruto would listen to his advice. Mabui continued by finishing her rules.

"The fourth rule is you need to come to either me, C or B before starting a new training exercise. We need to make sure that you're learning safely and can give you tips or help to make sure you get the most from training."

"No problem Mabui-chan. I'll come to you before I start training anything new."

"Good. The final rule you have to follow is that you are not allowed to teach anyone anything we teach you without our permission. Some things we are teaching you can be dangerous if they not performed correctly or they are done by a person who is not ready. Only we can tell if someone is ready or not to learn the things we're teaching you, so come to us if anyone wants to learn what you're learning."

Naruto nodded his head to show his understanding.

"Alright Mabui-chan. I will follow your rules."

Mabui smiled. "Good. When we're training, call me Mabui-sensei. You can call me Mabui-chan again when we're done. Now follow me closely. I'll show you to the training ground the first few times you do this training but you'll need to remember how to get there for later."

Naruto jumped up and followed Mabui closely. He was excited that he was one step closer to accomplishing his dream.

_ Scene Break _

Naruto walked through the streets of Kumo, his hand in his pockets and a huge grin on his face. It was barely even one week after C had shown him how to start the chakra bubble exercise and while he had not mastered the first step, or even really completed it, Naruto was making serious progress.

C had been very impressed at how fast he was progressing with his chakra control. C had even predicted that he would finish the exercise by the end of the next week and master it enough to move on by the end of the month.

He was doing less well on his reading but no one was disappointed by that. He had tried his best to puzzle through the scrolls on his own but had ultimately had to go to Mabui for help.

Mabui had been angered when she found out that no one had even bothered to teach him to read. She had immediately begun to teach him how to read whenever she could and Naruto soaked up the knowledge like a sponge. Mabui had told him that he would be ready to start puzzling through the scrolls she had originally given him in another two months.

None of that was what had put the smile on Naruto's face however. The event that had Naruto so excited was the large festival that was going on around him. He was not actually sure just what the people around him were celebrating, but he was celebrating his new beginning as a citizen of Kumo.

Naruto finally decided that his first destination had to be one of the many carnival game stalls that lined the streets. He tried to see what every stall around him was doing so he could pick the best activity for himself, but found that he was too short to get a good look into each stall.

Finally Naruto gave up on his attempted reconnaissance and decided to just pick a stall at random. He closed his eyes and span around, upsetting many of the people trying to walk past him, and found himself facing a small hut that had few people around it.

Naruto shrugged his shoulders at his random choice and headed in the direction he was facing. He quickly ducked through the crowd and pulled himself up into one of the many seats facing the interior of the hut.

Inside the small gaming hut was a small, mousy looking man. He was dressed in a bright coat with rhinestones scattered across it in the shape of constellations that seemed just a little too large for the man inside.

Naruto quickly noticed that there was only one other person sitting at the stall with him. The person was a young, blond girl that he thought was around his age. She was wearing black, shinobi style pans and a pale pink shirt. The girl looked over at the noise he made when he sat down and a huge smile grew across her face.

"Alright!" The girl exclaimed. "Finally!"

Naruto blinked in surprise.

"Huh?" He asked intelligently.

The girl snorted. "I've been waiting ten minutes for someone else to want to play this game. He only lets people play it in pairs because he wants people to compete for prizes."

Naruto looked over at the mousy-looking man. He nodded his head in what Naruto could tell was fake enthusiasm.

"The little lady is correct." The man replied in an unnecessarily grand voice. "You need two people to play this game. It's more exciting if there can only be one winner."

Naruto looked back at the girl and she explained a little more.

"This is the only game that i've found so far that has shinobi gear as prizes."

Naruto's head snapped back towards the man only to receive another nod.

"The lady is correct again. I am proud to announce that this is the only stall in the whole fair that uses shinobi training gear as prizes. Instead of getting stuffed animals or action figures you can win training shuriken or blunted kunai."

Naruto jumped up and down in his seat excitedly. This was so much better than he had originally thought. Not only did he get to play the fun games other kids used to talk about but he got training material out of it to.

"That's awesome! What do I have to do?"

The man immediately jumped into the quick, precise pattern of a man who had given a speech many times before.

"This is the amazing Shinobi Games! Here you have to compete with a partner by throwing ping pong balls into the cups to get prizes. Blue cups are one point, red cups are two points, green cups are five points and the gold cup is worth an amazing ten points. At the end, the person with the most points wins and gets to choose a prize based on how many points they have."

Naruto frowned as he thought about the rules. "What about the other person though?"

The carnival worker shrugged. "They're welcome to try again later."

Naruto bit his lip in indecision for a moment before he shrugged and nodded his head.

"Alright, I'll play."

The girl and the man both smiled, apparently this wasn't a popular stall. The man added the last few rules now that he had reeled them in.

"Great. It's five ping pong balls for fifty ryō. It's also against the rules for any active duty shinobi to play, too easy for them."

Naruto nodded and handed over the fifty ryō. The girl had evidently paid before because the man immediately handed over the ping pong balls to each of them.

Naruto picked up the ball and bounced it in his hand. He took careful aim and threw the ball. It flew threw the air at the gold cup, bounced off the rim and landed in a blue cup.

He groaned in dismay before trying again for the same results. He finally decided that the gold cup was just too difficult for him and went after a green cup instead. He threw two more balls before glancing at his opponent.

He watched as she threw her last ball into another green cup and tallied up her score. He quickly realized that she had gotten four green cups and a blue cup. Thinking that he had no way to win this he tossed his ball without looking at his target.

Naruto quickly looked up however when the man declared "Winner. The boy with the yellow hair."

To Naruto's amazement his last ball had fallen directly in the gold cup that he had tried to hit in the beginning. He was shaken out of his shock when the girl got up.

She quickly walked away with a frown on her face. Naruto wanted to tell her that he would play her again and that she shouldn't be so sad but he was distracted by the mouse-like man.

"You got a total of twenty-two points that means you can get anything on these shelves totaling up to twenty points."

Naruto glanced at the shelves the man was pointing to. Sitting on the shelves were training shuriken and kunai, a grappling hook set, some climbing gear, a small spool of ninja wire and a small training sword.

He glanced at the price tags and thought about all the cool things he could get with his points but stopped when he remembered the girl he had won against. Finally he decided and, after he grabbed the items he took, ran in the direction the girl had gone.

He caught up to her fairly quickly, her pink shirt and small stature making it easy for him to find her. Naruto ran up to the girl and smiled at her. She blinked in surprise at seeing her recent opponent, unsure just why he had tracked her down.

Naruto saw that she was confused so he decided to take the innovative.

"Hi! I'm Naruto Uzumaki and you were really great back there."

The girl blinked before blurting out her reply.

"What? But I lost."

Naruto shook his head at her answer.

"Nah, you did way better than what I did. I was just really lucky. You were really precise."

The girl let a small smile grow on her lips.

"Heh. Well I've been trying it all day, I should be pretty good by now."

Naruto's grin grew wider.

"Ya, you totally should have won, that's why I want you to take this."

Naruto handed over the small bag that he had been holding. The girl reached into the bag and pulled out a set of black, fingerless gloves with three thin, straight blades attached to the top by a steel plate. The girl let out a small gasp and looked up at Naruto. He blushed lightly as he explained himself.

"I saw that you were looking at those climbing gloves earlier and you really should have won so I got you those."

The girl was still looking at him in shock so Naruto rambled on.

"I didn't really need any of the stuff he had as prizes, I mean I'm only beginning to train as a shinobi and I'm nowhere near where I need to be to. ..."

He was interrupted when the girl gave him a quick hug. This time Naruto was the one shocked speechless as the girl rambled on.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you. I've been trying to get these gloves all day. This is the only place that I've been able to find gloves like these for under one-thousand ryō. It's just that I wasn't very good at first and then no one wanted to play and then you came along and. ..."

Naruto interrupted her with a chuckle.

"Hey, it was no problem. Like I said, you really should have won."

The girl smiled at him and took a moment to calm down. When she started speaking again she was much more like she had been back at the game stall, excited and happy but under control.

"Thanks. I've always liked climbing and these will help a lot. I've wanted a set since I saw them but it takes so much money to get them from a store."

Naruto was nodding his head in agreement when the girl seemed to remember that she hadn't introduced herself yet.

"Oh, right. How rude of me. I forgot to tell you my name. I'm Yugito Nii and I want to be the greatest kunoichi in all the elemental nations."

Naruto blinked in surprise.

"Wait, what? Did you say you were Yugito?"

The girl's smile dipped a little and her eyes narrowed.

"Yah. You have a problem with that?"

Naruto shook his head hurriedly.

"No, not at all. It's just that the raikage told me to look out for you. He said that you were cool and that we had a lot in common."

Yugito's smile grew back to what it originally was.

"Oh really? What did he say?"

Naruto looked around for a private place but quickly found that he couldn't find one. He gave up after a moment and spent another minute trying to figure out how to tell her about his bijuu without anyone else overhearing.

"I guess you could say that we have a lot in common with B-san as well."

Yugito blinked at his short answer after taking so long to think of a reply. Then she analyzed exactly what he said and froze.

"Are you making fun of me?" she asked dangerously.

Naruto shook his head as seriously as he could manage.

"No. All three of us have a lot in common. I'm supposed to keep it a secret for now but I'm allowed to tell you."

She nodded very slowly before holding up two fingers near her waist. Naruto looked around as well before answering her with nine fingers. Her eyes grew wider at his reply.

"Seriously?"

Naruto nodded his head. "Yah."

"But, but how?"

Naruto looked around to make sure that no one was paying attention to them before replying as vaguely as he could manage.

"I only moved to Kumo recently. Before that I was in Konoha. B, C, and Mabui rescued me and brought me here."

Yugito took in his story before nodding her head. She was extremely intelligent and was able to get quite a few details from the short story and she had a pretty good idea of what had happened.

"Wow. That's, actually really cool. And you're around my age too."

Naruto nodded enthusiastically.

"It is really cool." He paused for a moment as he tried to figure out how to continue the conversation. He really liked talking to Yugito, it was almost like he had a friend his own age.

"So, where were you going before I stopped you."

Yugito blinked at the change in topic but realized that there was nothing else that could be discussed outside of a secure place so she just went along with it.

"Uh, I was going to find someplace to eat. I've been sitting at that stall for five hours now."

Naruto nodded his head nervously.

"Ah. I see. Do. I mean, would you, like to, uh, maybe, uh."

Naruto was interrupted by a laughing Yugito.

"Sure Naruto-san. I would love to get to know you. Why don't you come with me to get something to eat and then we can explore the fair together."

Naruto sighed in relief and grinned.

"Heh, that was way more awkward than I thought it was going to be. What do you like to eat?"

Yugito grinned fiercely and relied with a fervor that he had never heard related to a food before.

"Sushi!"

_ Scene Break _

Naruto concentrated as hard as he possibly could. First he connected with his chakra, a process he had done so many times already it was as easy as breathing. Then he carefully pushed the chakra down to his legs.

He had learned to be careful the hard way. Too much chakra, to fast would cause his legs to feel like they were burning, and would overload his tenketsu. He'd had to stop training for three days after he'd done that.

Once he had a strong enough flow he gently pushed it out through the tenketsu on his feet. Naruto felt his chakra flow out of his body like it had countless times before. He started by pushing gently, causing him to wobble gently five inches above the ground.

Slowly he increased the flow of chakra through his feet. He stopped focusing on his surrounding or his balance on the pillar of chakra he was forming, only the stability of the pillar mattered.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity to Naruto, the pillar under him stabilized. He felt emotions traveling through him, shock, joy, excitement, before his pillar of chakra started to destabilize. He quickly pushed the emotions away and focused on the pillar.

After a moment that seemed to go on forever the chakra pillar stabilized again. Carefully keeping his focus on his chakra, Naruto opened his eyes. And promptly fell to the ground, four feet below him.

Naruto felt the hidden seals around him catch him and slow his fall, a feeling he had become familiar with over the fast two weeks. Normally this feeling came with a spot of disappointment but this time Naruto felt nothing but pride.

He had finally got it right. For just a couple of moments he had actually been levitating on a stable pillar of his own chakra. He glanced up at his sensei, C, who had been watching him practice. C had a large smile on his face as he approached Naruto.

"Maybe I was just seeing things but it looked like you got it that time."

Naruto grinned from ear to ear as he replied to C's playful taunt.

"You didn't imagine it, I finally managed to levitate!"

C nodded his head to show his appreciation of Naruto's work.

"You did didn't you. I have to tell you that that is the fastest I have ever seen someone complete this portion of the chakra bubble. Of course most people can't work as long as you without getting chakra exhaustion, but then again, they usually have much better control than you do."

Naruto's smile grew larger at the praise. He really was advancing in his goal. At this rate he'd be the best shinobi in the world in no time.

"So what now, C-sensei?"

C put on a fake shocked look.

"What do you mean, what now? Now you do it again."

Naruto put on his best pout, not that he would ever call it a pout, it was much more like his manly pleading look, and whined at C.

"Aww, but why? I finished the exercise didn't I?"

C squatted down so he was at Naruto's eye level.

"You did complete it, yes. And if I was any less of a good sensei I would allow you to move on to the next exercise. What you really need to know though is that while you did manage to complete the exercise I gave you, you have no where near mastered it."

Naruto looked at C's expression and knew that what he was saying had to be important, he only ever had that expression when what he was saying was vitally important. Knowing that, Naruto tried his absolute best to listen and understand.

"I don't get it. What do I have to do?"

C could see that Naruto wasn't understanding his idea so he tried to put it in a different way

"Look Naruto, the difference between a good shinobi and a great shinobi is that a good shinobi learns many techniques while a great shinobi masters many techniques."

Naruto instantly knew that he wanted to be a great shinobi, he wanted to be the best, so he asked for some more answers.

"What does it mean to master a technique?"

C smiled at Naruto's question, he knew that mentioning 'a great shinobi' would get Naruto's attention.

"That depends on the technique Naruto-kun. Generally you know you have learned a technique if you can use it and you know you have mastered a technique if you can use it naturally, with the least amount of effort possible."

Seeing that Naruto was lost, C decided to give some concrete examples.

"For things like taijutsu or kenjutsu, you know a move if you can pull it off but you master a move when using a move becomes natural to you, it becomes something you don't have to think about to do. For ninjutsu or genjutsu, you usually master a jutsu if you use the least amount of chakra necessary to pull off the technique and if you can do it without at least some of the hand seals."

Naruto nodded his head slowly.

"So in this, I would have to be able to balance instantly without thinking about it?"

C nodded his head back and forth to show that Naruto was partially right.

"Kinda, if you really want to master this move you have to be able to do things like build the pillar in under ten seconds and then be able to fight on it. We aren't going to go that far, for us, mastery is being able to stand on the pillar and deal with distractions without falling."

Naruto got a stubborn look on his face. C had just told him that great shinobi had to master techniques and was now telling him that he wouldn't be mastering this. That wasn't going to go over well with the young jinchuriki.

"No, I'm going to master the levitating like you said before."

C looked surprised at his defiance.

"Oh? Why would you want to do that? It will take much longer to train you up if you try to completely master every technique I teach you."

Naruto nodded his head, his face filled with determination.

"You said that a great shinobi needs to master the skills that they learn. If I want to be the best shinobi in the world I need to be a great shinobi. I don't care how long it takes, I'll master every technique you give me ."

C smiled at Naruto's promise.

"That's a really good attitude to have. Just remember that mastering a technique takes time and that focusing on mastering a single technique can be worse than just learning a few techniques."

Naruto nodded his head slowly, clearly not understanding. C cast around for another way of stating his point before coming up with the perfect way to explain it.

"Having one mastered jutsu would be better than having two learned jutsu but mastering that jutsu could take the same amount of time learning three jutsu would take. You have to balance your time between learning and mastering techniques because both have their downsides."

"What is the downside to mastering techniques?"

C was glad that Naruto was asking questions, he really was becoming a better student every day they worked together.

"Mastering a technique takes a lot of time and leaves you with a single technique. No technique is unbeatable so if anyone can defeat your technique you have nothing to fight with. Learning techniques is faster so you have more to use, making you harder to defeat but someone who masters techniques could be better than you which would also be bad."

Naruto nodded his head confidently.

"So wouldn't it be best to just master a lot of techniques?"

C laughed at his student's question.

"Of course it would, but that takes a long time. Some day you'll get to that point if you work hard enough but that's a while off. Now why don't you get back to practicing, if you want to start mastering techniques you'll need all the time you can get."

Naruto took one last moment to make sure he would remember this lesson before running back to his practice spot. A small grin on his face and more determined than ever before, Naruto began concentrating.

_ Scene Break _

Naruto wandered down the street trying to find something to do. He had finished training and didn't feel like reading more scrolls so he left his apartment to wander Kumo. He felt that he had been working hard lately and that he should take a "kid" day.

The only problem with that is that he had never really had time to do things normal children did so he was unsure what to do. Naruto walked around aimlessly for an hour before a noise caused him to stop.

The noise was a faint clicking sound, like whatever had caused it was far away or muffled. The only reason he had heard it was because he had been training to hear the click most mechanical traps made when triggered like the scroll he was reading suggested.

He immediately froze and looked around, hoping that he hadn't stepped into a trap. After a moment he realized that he was being foolish and relaxed. He was on a busy street and people were walking all around him. If they had no problem with a trap then he wouldn't either.

He took another step and froze when he heard the sound again. Naruto frowned and decided to listen more closely. After a moment he heard the click again. The sound was actually fairly rhythmic and muffled, the only reason he had heard the previous clicks was because they were slightly louder than the rest.

If Naruto had one fatal flaw as a shinobi it was his curiosity. Now that he heard the faint clicking sounds he had to know what was making it. Following his ears, something he had gotten fairly adept at back in Konoha, Naruto headed off into a small side alley off the street.

The back alleys of Kumo were designed by shinobi to help in the event of an invasion. They were long, twisting mazes that connected with the sewer and each other to form a second set of streets that could take you almost anywhere in Kumo.

Naruto followed the sound through the twisting maze. The sound got louder and Naruto could tell he was getting closer. After a quick four minute walk, Naruto came up to a small, enclosed garden hidden.

The garden had large brick walls that were taller than most men could climb. There were only two entrances to the garden that he could see, one into the building the garden was connected to and the other a small hole in the wall that was next to him. At some point the entrance to the house had been bricked up, leaving the hole the only entrance to the garden.

Finally having caught up to the clicking noise Naruto slowly crawled through the small opening in the wall. The garden had obviously seen better days, most of the plants were dead and the few that remained alive ran everywhere. Sitting in the center of the garden was a small fountain, that once ran with water endlessly, but was now dry and cracked.

Naruto headed towards the dry fountain which was the source of the sounds he was following. He slowly crept up to the fountain and peered over the lip that was designed to keep water in when it still worked.

Sitting in the center of the fountain was a young bird. The bird was mostly brown but it had white feathers around its tail and in the underside of its wings. The feathers around the head were more golden in color leading to a sharp hooked beak and a pair of golden, almost glowing eyes.

The bird was steadily tapping at a metal grate to produce the sound that had attracted Naruto. The grate was supposed to help keep things out of the drain but it had rusted, leaving small holes. Naruto bumped into the lip of the fountain causing the bird to look at him. When the bird moved it revealed that the bird's foot had gotten caught in one of the holes in the grate.

Naruto climbed into the fountain and approached the bird. The bird watched him carefully as he approached as if trying to determine he was a threat. Naruto slowed down even more, he knew just how dangerous animals could be if provoked.

Naruto slowly reached out towards the bird's leg, attempting to help the bird free itself. The bird let his hand get close before whipping its head around. Naruto snatched his hand back as fast as he could but the bird was faster. The bird's beak dragged along the side of Naruto's hand leaving a long, deep cut.

Naruto jumped backwards away from the bird, worried it might attack again but the bird just sat there, his blood staining the edge of its beak. Naruto slowly examined his hand and saw that the cut was already beginning to heal. A proper diet and a real home cleared a lot of the strain his kekkei genkai had been under, speeding his healing up considerably.

After one minute of work the cut stopped bleeding, allowing Naruto to refocus on the bird. He noticed that while the bird had not moved from its spot it was still watching him intently. Frowning to himself, Naruto sat back on his heels and tried to figure out what to do.

He didn't want to just leave the bird trapped, it would starve to death and Naruto wouldn't wish that on anyone. He also couldn't help free it if the bird kept attacking him. He also couldn't go for help because he wasn't sure he could find this place again.

Naruto approached the bird again but this time sat outside of its range. He decided to try to calm the bird down by talking to it.

"Hey now, how did you manage to get in there?" He asked gently.

The bird tilted its head to the side but continued watching him.

"You look like you're stuck and I just want to help." Naruto continued.

The bird tilted its head the other way.

"I can help you get out, allow you to fly again, you just have to let me help you."

The bird did not respond in any way.

"If I reach out, you don't attack me. Alright?"

The bird looked like it was considering his words. Finally the bird let out a short screech.

Naruto was surprised that the bird responded to him. Even worse, he had kind of understood what it said.

"Of course I'm not trying to trick you, I really just want to help. I know what it's like to be trapped and hungry and if I can help then I want to."

The bird looked like it was considering his reply before letting out another screech.

"Hey. No need to be paranoid or anything. I could just walk away, then where would you be?"

The bird let out another screech, different than the ones before and ruffled its feathers. Naruto briefly wondered if he was insane to think that a bird could have a conversation with him but he decided to reply anyway.

"Hey now, there's no need for that. I'm just saying that it's alright to get a little help every now and then."

The bird considered his words for a while before letting out another screech and moving its head away from its leg. Naruto briefly hoped that he wasn't being tricked, that beak hurt damn it, but reached out to the bird again.

The bird watched him closely but made no move towards his hand. Naruto finally reached its leg and began to feel around the grate that held the bird's leg trapped. The grate had given way under the bird's weight and a piece of metal was wrapped around its foot.

Naruto gently grabbed the metal and began to pull. The rusted metal parted easily under his grip and he gently pulled the bird's leg free. The bird hopped away from the grate and landed on the lip of the fountain. Naruto made sure not to move in case he startled the bird.

The bird just stared at Naruto for a long moment before giving another screech.

"Your welcome." Naruto replied automatically.

The bird considered him for another moment before letting out a screech that sounded very self-satisfied.

"Wait, What? What do you mean I'll do?"

The bird gave a short screech as if explaining.

"My nest? You mean my home? You want to come home with me?"

The bird gave a very deliberate nod which convinced Naruto he was not crazy.

"Uh, alright I guess. You'll have to find your own food mostly and I usually train most of the day so you'll have to find something to do but you can live with me."

The bird gave another shriek to show its acceptance.

"Now then, we just need a name for you?"

The bird let out another shriek causing Naruto to pause.

"You have a name already? Well, what is it?"

The bird let out a call that was like a cross between a bark and a cough.

"Lyth, huh? That's a great name. Well hello Lyth, I'm Naruto Uzumaki and I think we'll be great friends."

The bird let out a call full of joy and Naruto started laughing.


End file.
